
Class B/?„ <?6 

BookiZ^ 

fopigtofl°i££X 

COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT 



£nglisl) ill en of £cttcrs 

EDITED BY JOHN MORLEY 



LOCKE 



BY 



/ 



THOMAS FOWLER 

PROFESSOR OF LOGIC IN THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORB 








NEW YORK 
HARPER & BROTHERS, PUBLISHERS 

FRANKLIN SQUARE 



\ 



f> 






ab 



^ 



ENGLISH MEN OF LETTERS. 

Edited by John Morley. 



Johnson Leslie Stephen. 

Gibbon J. C. Morison. 

Scott R. H. Hutton. 

Shelley J. A. Symonds. 

Hume .....T. H. Huxley. 

Goldsmith William Black. 

Defoe William Minto. 

Burns J. C. Shairp. 

Spenser R. W. Church. 

Thackeray Anthony Trollope. 

Burke John Morley. 

Milton Mark Pattison. 

Hawthorne Henry James, Jr. 

Southey E. Dowden. 

Chaucer A. W. Ward. 

Bunyan.. J. A. Froude. 

Cowper Goldwin Smith. 

Pope Leslie Stephen. 

Sir Philip Sidney 



Byron John Nichol. 

Locke Thomas Fowler. 

Wordsworth F. Myers. 

Dryden G. Saintsbury. 

Landor Sidney Colvin. 

De Quincey David Masson. 

Lamb Alfred Ainger. 

Bentley R. C. Jebb. 

Dickens A. W. Ward. 

Gray .E. W. Gosse. 

Swift Leslie Stephen. 

Sterne H. D. Traill. 

Macaulay J. Cotter Morison. 

Fielding Austin Dobson. 

Sheridan Mrs. Oliphant. 

Addison W. J. Courthope. 

Bacon R. W. Church. 

Coleridge H. D. Traill. 

J. A. Symonds. 



i2mo, Cloth, 75 cents per volume. 



Published by HARPER & BROTHERS, New York. 

Any of the above works will be sent by mail, postage prepaid, to any part 
of the United Slates, on receipt of the price* 



NOTE. 

In writing the chapters on Locke's Life, I have derived 
much information from the biographies of Lord King and 
Fox Bourne, especially from the latter, which contains 
•ge amount of most interesting documents never be- 
printed. In a work like the present, where numer- 
oot-notes would be out of place, I am obliged to con- 
: myself with this general acknowledgment. I may 
add that I have also referred to several other authorities, 
both printed and in manuscript ; and, in some cases, I be- 
lieve that my account will be found more precise than that 
given in the larger biographies. 



CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER I. 

1>AGE 

Locke's Boyhood. — His early Life in Oxford ... 1 



CHAPTER II. 

Medical Studies. — Public Employments. — Connex- 
ion with Shaftesbury 12 

CHAPTER III. 

Residence in France. — Further Relations with 

Shaftesbury. — Expulsion from Christ Church . 28 



CHAPTER IV. 

Residence in Holland. — The Revolution. — Return 
to England. — Publication of the " Essay" and 
other works 44 

CHAPTER V. 

Life at Oates. — Friendships. — Further Publica- 
tions 62 

CHAPTER VI. 

Political Affairs. — Public Occupations. -Relations 

with the King 82 



viii CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER VII. 

PAGE 

Controversy with Stillingfleet. — Other Literary 
Occupations. — Domestic Life. — Peter King. — 
Latter Years. — Death 102 

CHAPTER VIII. 
Essay on Human Understanding . 127 



CHAPTER IX. 

Locke's Opinions on Religion and Morals, and his 
Theological Writings 152 



CHAPTER X. 

The Thoughts on Education and the Conduct of 
the Understanding 168 



CHAPTER XI. 
Works on Government, Trade, and Finance . . . 179 

CHAPTER XII. 
Locke's Influence on Thought ........ 194 



LOCKE. 



CHAPTER I. 
locke's boyhood. — his early life in oxford. 

John Locke, perhaps the greatest, but certainly the rnosv 
characteristic, of English philosophers, was born at Wring- 
ton, a pleasant village in the north of Somersetshire, Au- 
gust 29, 1632. His family, however, resided in the village 
of Pensford, and the parish of Publow, within a few miles 
of Bristol. It was there, probably, that Locke spent the 
greater part of his early life. His mother appears to have 
died while he was young. From his father, John Locke 
(b. 1606), who seems to have inherited a fair estate, and 
who practised, with some success, as a country attorney, 
he probably derived, if not his earliest instruction, at least 
some of his earliest influences and some of his most ster- 
ling characteristics. " From Mr. Locke I have often heard 
of his father," says Lady Mash am in a MS. letter quoted 
by Mr. Fox-Bourne in his Life of Locke, " that he was a 
man of parts. Mr. Locke never mentioned him but with 
great respect and affection. His father used a conduct 
towards him when young that he often spoke of afterwards 
with great approbation. It was the being severe to him 
1* 



2 XOCKE. [chap. 

by keeping him in much awe and at a distance when he 
was a boy, but relaxing, still by degrees, of that severity 
as he grew up to be a man, till, he being become capa- 
ble of it, he lived perfectly with him as a friend. And I 
remember he has told me that his father, after he was a 
man, solemnly asked his pardon for having struck him 
once in a passion when he was a boy." 

Locke's boyhood coincided pretty nearly with the trou- 
bles of the Civil Wars. " I no sooner perceived myself 
in the world," he wrote in 1660, "but I found myself in 
a storm which has lasted almost hitherto." His father, 
when Locke was hardly ten years old, publicly announced, 
in the parish church of Publow, his assent to the protest 
of the Long Parliament, and, a few weeks afterwards, took 
the field, on the Parliamentary side, as captain of a troop 
of horse in a regiment of volunteers. Though the fort- 
unes of the family undoubtedly suffered from this step 
on the part of the young attorney, the political and re- 
ligious interests which it created and kept alive in his 
household must have contributed, in no small degree, to 
shape the character and determine the sympathies of his" 
elder son. 

Locke, 'then, may be regarded as having been fortu- 
nate in his early surroundings. Born in one of the more 
charming of the rural districts of England, not far, how- 
ever, from a city which was then one of the most impor- 
tant centres of commerce and politics; sprung from re- 
spectable and well-to-do parents, of whom the father, at 
least, possessed more than ordinary intelligence; accus- 
tomed, from his earliest boyhood, to watch the progress of 
great events, and to listen to the discussion of great and 
stirring questions; there seems to have been nothing in_ 
his early life to retard or mar the development of his 



i.] EARLY LIFE IN OXFORD. 3 

genius, and much that we may not unreasonably connect 
with the marked peculiarities, both moral and intellectual, 
of his subsequent career. 

It was probably in the year 1646 that, through the in- 
terest of Colonel Popham, a friend and client of his fa- 
ther, Locke was admitted at Westminster School, where, 
probably in the following year, he was elected on the 
foundation. Here he must have remained about six years, 
till his election to a Westminster Studentship at Christ 
Church, Oxford, in 1652. Of the manner in which Locke 
spent these years we have no definite information. The 
stern disciplinarian, Dr. Busby, had been head master for 
about eight years when he entered the school, and among 
his schoolfellows, senior to him by about a year, were Dry- 
den and South. The friends whom he made at Westmin- 
ster, though highly respectable in after-life, did not achieve 
any great reputation. Of the studies which then consti- 
tuted the ordinary school curriculum, his matured opin- 
ions are to be found in the "Thoughts concerning Edu- 
cation," which will be described in a subsequent chapter. 
To judge from this book, the impressions left on Locke's 
mind by our English public school education were not of 
a pleasant or favourable kind. 

Locke appears to have commenced his residence at 
Christ Church in the Michaelmas Term of 1652, soon 
after he had turned twenty years of age. His matricu- 
lation before the Vice- Chancellor bears date Nov. 27. 
Since the outbreak of the Civil Wars, both the University 
and the College had undergone many vicissitudes. At 
the moment when Locke entered, Cromwell was Chancel- 
lor; and Dr. John Owen, who was destined to be for some 
.time the leading resident, had been recently appointed 
Dean of Christ Church and Vice-Cbancellor <>f the Qui- 



4 LOCKE. [chap. 

versity. Owen was an Independent, and, for a divine of 
that age, a man of remarkably tolerant and liberal views. 
Though, then as now, a dignitary in Owen's position prob- 
ably had and could have but little intercourse with the 
junior members of his society, it is not improbable that 
Locke may have derived his first bias towards those opin- 
ions on the question of religious toleration, for which he 
afterwards became so famous, from the publications and 
the practice of the Puritan Dean of Christ Church. Locke's 
tutor was a Mr. Cole, afterwards Principal of St. Mary Hall, 
but of his relations with his pupil we hear nothing of 
any importance. Wood calls him a "fanatical tutor;" by 
which, of course, he does not mean more than that he was 
a Puritan. 

During the Civil Wars the discipline and reputation of 
the Universities, however we may apportion the blame, 
seem to have suffered most severely. In these troublous 
times, indeed, it could hardly be otherwise. There is con- 
siderable evidence to show that, in the Little or Barebones 
Parliament of 1653, there was a serious attempt to sup- 
press the Colleges and Universities altogether, and to apply 
the proceeds of their estates, as Clarendon tells us, " for 
the public service, and to ease the people from the pay- 
ment of taxes and contributions." If such an attempt 
ever had any chance of success— and from an oration of 
Dr. Owen we may infer that it had — it must have spread 
consternation amongst University circles, and been a fre- 
quent subject of conversation during the early period of 
Locke's residence in Oxford. But the Puritan party, 
which was now in the ascendant, was determined that, at 
any rate, no handle should be given to the enemy by any 
lack of discipline or by the infrequency of religious exer- 
cises. " Frequent preaching in every house," Anthony a 



i.] EARLY LIFE IN OXFORD. 5 

Wood teils us, u was the chief matter aimed at" by the 
Visitors appointed by Cromwell in 1652. Thus, on June 
2V, 1653, they ordered that " all Bachelors of Arts and 
Undergraduates in Colleges and Halls be required, every 
Lord's day, to give an account to some person of known 
ability and piety of the sermons they had heard and their 
attendance on other religious exercises that day. The 
Heads also or Deputies of the said Societies, with all above 
the Degree of Bachelor, were then ordered to be person- 
ally present at the performance of the said exercise, and 
to take care that it be attended with prayer and such other 
duties of religion as are proper to such a meeting." In 
addition to the Sunday observances, there were also, in 
most Colleges, if not in all, one or two sermons or religious 
meetings in the course of the week. Locke, if we may 
judge from his character in later years, must have occa- 
sionally found these tedious, and doubtless lengthy, exer- 
cises somewhat irksome and unprofitable. But we do not 
meet in his writings with any definite complaints of them, 
as we do of the scholastic disputations and some other 
parts of the academical course as pursued at that time. 
Of the disputations, which then constituted a very impor- 
tant element in the University curriculum, he expresses an 
unfavourable, perhaps too unfavourable an opinion. Writ- 
ing in 1690, in the " Thoughts concerning Education," he 
says : " If the use and end of right reasoning be to have 
right notions and a right judgment of things, to distin- 
guish between truth and falsehood, right and wrong, and 
to act accordingly, be sure not to let your son be bred up 
in the art and formality of disputing — either practising 
it himself or admiring it in others — unless, instead of an 
able man, you desire to have him an insignificant wrangler, 
opiniator in discourse, and priding himself in contradicting 



6 LOCKE. [chap. 

others ; or, which is worse, questioning- everything, and 
thinking there is no such thing as truth to be sought, but 
only victory, in disputing. There cannot be anything so 
disingenuous, so unbecoming a gentleman, or any one who 
pretends to be a rational creature, as not to yield to plain 
reason and the conviction of clear arguments. Is there 
anything more inconsistent with civil conversation, and 
the end of all debate, than not to take an answer, though 
ever so full and satisfactory ? . . . For this, in short, is 
the way and perfection of logical disputes, that the oppo- 
nent never takes any answer, nor the respondent ever yields 
to any argument." With the logic and rhetoric, the Latin 
speaking and Latin writing, then in vogue, Locke is almost 
equally discontented. In fact, he looked back, in after-life, 
with little gratitude on the somewhat dry course of studies 
which the University then prescribed to its younger schol- 
ars. " I have often heard him say, in reference to his first 
years spent in the University," says Lady Masham, "that 
he had so small satisfaction there from his studies, as find- 
ings very little light brought thereby to his understanding, 
that he became discontented with his manner of life, and 
wished his father had rather designed him for anything 
else than what he was destined to, apprehending that his 
no greater progress in knowledge proceeded from his not 
being fitted or capacitated to be a scholar." We must, 
however, by no means infer that Locke had not derived 
considerable benefit from the discipline which he dispar- 
ages. At any rate, the scholastic teaching of Oxford had 
a large share in forming, by reaction, many of his most 
characteristic opinions, while the Essay, in almost every 
page, bears distinctive marks of his early studies. Not- 
withstanding his depreciation, amounting often to ridicule, 
of the subjects he had learnt in his youth, we can hardly 



i.] EARLY LIFE IN OXFORD. 1 

doubt that, if Locke had been brought up in an Universi- 
ty where logic and philosophy did not form part of the 
course, his greatest work would never have been written. 

Mr. Fox-Bourne attempts to supply a detailed account 
of the lectures which Locke attended, and the course of 
studies which he pursued, during his undergraduate and 
bachelor days. This account, however, betrays an innocent 
belief in the rigid enforcement and observance of Univer- 
sity and College statutes which, I am sorry to say, I cannot 
share. Minute regulations regarding courses of study and 
attendance at lectures are apt very soon to fall into des- 
uetude, and it is impossible now to reconstruct with any 
accuracy, from the perusal of merely formal documents, a 
plan of the student life of the Commonwealth. It is to 
be much regretted that Locke and his contemporaries have 
not left us more specific information on the subject. All 
we can now say is that, if the authorities duly enforced 
their statutes and regulations, especially those > relating to 
professorial lectures, many of which w r ere appointed to be 
given at eight o'clock in the morning, the students of those 
days had by no means an easier time of it than their suc- 
cessors, even in these days of competition and examina- 
tions. 

The stated regulations and prescribed statutes of a seat 
of learning have, however, often far less to do with the 
formation of a student's mind than the society of the 
young men of his own age with whom his residence throws 
him into contact. Young men often educate one another 
far more effectually than they can be educated by their 
tutors or their books. The mutual confidences, the lively 
interchange of repartee, the free discussion of all manner 
of subjects in college rooms or during the afternoon walk, 
are often fap more stimulating and informing to the intel- 



8 LOCKE. [chap. 

lect than the professorial lecture, however learned, or the 
tutorial catechising, however searching. Of this less formal 
and more agreeable species of education Locke appears to 
have enjoyed his full share. He was not, according to the 
account which he gave of himself to Lady Mash am, " any 
very hard student," but " sought the company of pleasant 
and witty men, with whom he likewise took great delight 
in corresponding by letters ; and in conversation and these 
correspondences he spent for some years much of his 
time." 

It should be noticed that in the year 1654 Owen 
published a volume of congratulatory verses addressed to 
Cromwell on the treaty recently concluded with the Dutch, 
entitled " Musarum Oxoniensium eXatotyopla." Among the 
many contributors to this volume, young and old, was 
Locke, who wrote a short copy of Latin, and a longer copy 
of English verses. These compositions do not rise much 
above, or sink much below, the ordinary level of such ex- 
ercises ; but what is curious is that Locke's first published 
efforts in literature should have been in verse, especially 
when we bear in mind his strong and somewhat perverse 
judgment on verse -writing in § 174 of the "Thoughts 
concerning Education." The fact of his having been in- 
vited to contribute to the volume shows that he was re- 
garded as one of the more promising young students of 
his time. 

To the period of Locke's life covered by this chapter 
probably belong some interesting notes on philosophy and 
its divisions, found in his father's memorandum -book. 
These reflections afford evidence that he had already be- 
gun to think for himself, independently of the scholas- 
tic traditions. I append one or two characteristic ex- 
tracts : 



i.] EARLY LIFE IN OXFORD. 9 

" Dialectic, that is Logic, is to make reasons to grow, and improve 
both Physic and also Ethic, which is Moral Philosophy." 

" Moral Philosophy is the knowledge of precepts of all honest 
manners which reason acknowledgeth to belong and appertain to 
man's nature, as the things in which we differ from beasts. It is 
also necessary for the comely government of man's life." 

" Necessity was the first finder-out of Moral Philosophy, and ex- 
perience (which is a trusty teacher) was the first master thereof." 

Locke took his B.A. degree on the 14th of February, 
1655-56, and his M.A. degree on the 29th of June, 1658, 
the latter on the same day with Nathaniel Crewe, after- 
wards Lord Crewe, Bishop of Durham, and Joseph Glan- 
vill, the celebrated writer on witchcraft, and author of 
Scepsis Scientijica. The statutable time of taking both 
degrees was anticipated, but irregularities of this kind 
were not then infrequent. On the 24th of December, 
1660, he was appointed Greek Lecturer at Christ Church 
for the ensuing year, thus taking his place among the 
authorized teachers of his college, and so entering on a 
new phase of university life Very shortly after this date, 
namely, on February 13, 1660-61, the elder Locke died, 
a3t. fifty -four. Locke's only brother, Thomas, who was 
some years younger than himself, died of consumption 
shortly after his father. By the time, therefore, that 
Locke had fairly entered on his duties as an officer of his 
college, he was left alone of all his family. 

Though it was not till a much later period of his life 
that Locke published any works, his pen was at this time 
by no means idle. In 1661 he began a series of common- 
place books, often containing long articles on the subjects 
which were occupying his thoughts at the time. It is, 

moreover, to the period immediately preceding or im- 
B 



;W 



10 LOCKE. [chap. 

mediately following the Restoration, that Mr. Fox-Bourne 
attributes an unpublished and till recently unknown Essay, 
entitled " Reflections upon the Roman Commonwealth." 
Many of the remarks in this Essay already show what 
we should call liberal opinions in religion and politics, and 
anticipate views long afterwards propounded in the works 
on government and tojeration. The religion instituted by 
Numa is idealized, as having insisted on only two articles 
of faith, the goodness of the gods, and the necessity of 
worshipping them, " in which worship the chief of all was 
to be innocent, good, and just." Thus it avoided " creat- 
ing heresies and schisms," and " narrowing the bottom of 
religion by clogging it with creeds and catechisms and end- 
less niceties about the essences, properties, and attributes 
of God." 

Of more interest, perhaps, is another unpublished trea- 
tise, written just after the Restoration, in which Locke 
asks, and answers in the affirmative, the following ques- 
tion : Whether the civil magistrate may lawfully impose 
and determine the use of indifferent things in reference to 
religious worship. This tract seems to have been intended 
as a remonstrance with those of the author's own party 
who questioned any right in the civil magistrate to inter- 
fere in religious matters, and who, therefore, were ready 
to reject with disdain the assurances of compromise and 
moderation contained in the king's declaration on ecclesi- 
astical affairs, issued at the beginning of his reign. Locke 
at that time, like many other moderate men, seems to have 
entertained the most sanguine hopes of pacification and 
good government under the rule of the new monarch. 
u As for myself," he writes, " there is no one can have a 
greater respect and veneration for authority than I. I no 
sooner perceived myself in the world, but I found myself 



i.] EARLY LIFE IN OXFORD. 11 

in a storm, which has lasted almost hitherto, and therefore 
cannot but entertain the approaches of a calm with the 
greatest joy and satisfaction." "I find that a general 
freedom is but a general bondage, that the popular as- 
serters of public liberty are the greatest ingrossers of it 
too, and not unfitly called its keepers." This reaction, 
however, against the past, and these sanguine expectations 
of the future, can have lasted but a short time. The ten- 
dencies of the new government were soon apparent, and 
the pamphlet was never published. 



CHAPTER II. 

MEDICAL STUDIES. PUBLIC EMPLOYMENTS. CONNEXION 

WITH SHAFTESBURY. 

Locke, at the time of his father's death and his entrance 
on college office, was in his twenty-ninth year. At the 
election of college officers on Christinas Eve, 1662, he was 
transferred from the Greek Lectureship to the Lectureship 
in Rhetoric, and, on the 23rd of December in the follow- 
ing year, he was again transferred to another office. This 
office was the Censorship of Moral Philosophy (the Senior 
Censorship) ; the Censorship of Natural Philosophy (the 
Junior Censorship) he appears never to have held. On 
the 23rd of December, 1665, he is no longer in office, 
being now merely one of the twenty senior M.A. students, 
called "Theologi," who were bound to be in priests' 
orders. Of the manner in which Locke discharged his 
duties as a lecturer we have no record. He seems also 
to have served in the capacity of tutor to several under- 
graduates at this period, but of his relations to his pupils 
we, unfortunately, know next to nothing. 

How is it that Locke, holding a clerical studentship, was 
pot a clergyman? The disturbed condition of the Church 
and the Universities during the last quarter of a century 
had probably led to great laxity in the enforcement of 
college statutes and by-laws. Moreover, for a time, it 



chap.il] PUBLIC EMPLOYMENTS. 13 

would seem, he seriously contemplated taking the step of 
entering holy orders, and the authorities of his college 
would probably be unwilling to force upon him a hasty 
decision. At length, however, he finally abandoned this 
idea, deciding in favour of the profession of physic. In 
the ordinary course he would have forfeited his student- 
ship, but he was fortunate to obtain a royal dispensation 
(by no means an uncommon mode of intervention at that 
time), retaining him in his place, " that he may still have 
further time to prosecute his studies." This dispensation 
is dated Nov. 14, 1666. 

Meanwhile, Locke had paid his first visit to the Contb 
ncnt. The occasion of it was an embassy to the Electoi 
of Brandenburg, whose alliance or neutrality it was sought 
to obtain in the then pending war with Holland. Sir 
AY alter Yane was head of the embassy, and Locke, who 
probably owed his nomination to the interest of his old 
schoolfellow, William Godolphin, was appointed secretary. 
They left England in the middle of November, 1665, and 
arrived at Cleve, the capital of Brandenburg, on the 30th 
of the same month (Dec. 9, N.S.). Here they remained 
for two months, the mission coming to nothing, in con- 
sequence of the English Government being unable or un- 
willing to advance the money which the Elector required 
as the price of his adhesion. The state-papers addressed 
by the Ambassador to the Government at home are main- 
ly in Locke's handwriting; but far more interesting than 
these are the private letters addressed by Locke to his 
friends, Mr. Strachey, of Sutton Court, near Bristol, and 
the celebrated Robert Boyle. These are full of graphic 
tcuches descriptive of the manners and peculiarities of the 
people among whom he found himself. Like a conscien- 
tious sight-seer, he availed himself of the various oppor- 



14 LOCKE. [chap. 

tunities of observing their eating and drinking, attended 
their devotions — whether Catholic, Calvinist, or Lutheran 
— submitted himself to be bored by poetasters and suck- 
ing theologians, and consoled himself for the difficulty of 
finding a pair of gloves by noting the tardiness of Ger- 
man commerce. Though he had u thought for a while to 
take leave of all University affairs," he found himself rid- 
den pitilessly by an "academic goblin." 

" I no sooner was got here, but I was welcomed with a divinity 
disputation. I was no sooner rid of that, but I found myself up to 
the ears in poetry, and overwhelmed in Helicon." " But my Univer- 
sity goblin left me not so ; for the next day, when I thought I had 
been rode out only to airing, I was had to a foddering of chopped 
hay or logic, forsooth ! Poor materia prima was canvassed cruelly,' 
stripped of all the gay dress of her forms, and shown naked to us, 
though, I must confess, I had not eves good enough to see her. The 
young monks (which one would not guess by their looks) are subtle 
people, and dispute as eagerly for materia prima as if they were to 
make their dinner on it, and, perhaps, sometimes it is all their meal, 
for which others' charity is more to be blamed than their stom- 
achs. . . . The truth is, here hog-shearing is much in its glory, and 
our disputing in Oxford comes as far short of it as the rhetoric of 
Carfax does that of Billingsgate." 

At a dinner, described with a good deal of humour, with 
the Franciscan friars, he was still pursued by his Oxford 
recollections : 

" The prior was a good plump fellow, that had more belly than 
brains ; and methought was very fit to be reverenced, and not much 
unlike some head of a college." 

One circumstance Locke noticed much to the advantage 
of the foreigners, namely, their good-natured toleration for 
each other's opinions. Writing to Boyle, he says — 



. 



il] PUBLIC EMPLOYMENTS. 15 

" The distance in their churches gets not into their houses. They 
quietly permit one another to choose their way to heaven ; for I can- 
not observe any quarrels or animosities amongst them upon the ac- 
count of religion. This good correspondence is owing partly to the 
power of the magistrate, and partly to the prudence and good-nature 
of the people, who, as I find by inquiring, entertain different opinions 
without any secret hatred or rancour." 

And though, like most Englishmen, of decided Protes- 
tant convictions, travelling on the Continent for the first 
time, Locke indulged in a good deal of merriment at the 
Catholic ceremonies, he pays, in one of his letters to Stra- 
chey, a cheerful tribute to the personal worth of the Cath- 
olic priests. He had not met, he says, with any people so 
good-natured or so civil, and he had received many cour- 
tesies from them, which he should always gratefully ac- 
knowledge. 

Locke returned to England towards the end of Febru- 
ary, 1665-66, and was at once offered the post of secretary 
to the Earl of Sandwich, who was on the point of setting- 
out as ambassador to Spain. He wavered for a short time, 
but, though doubtful whether he had not " let slip the 
minute that they say every one has once in his life to 
make himself," he finally declined the offer. Before set- 
tling down again in Oxford, he spent a few weeks in Som- 
ersetshire, paying probably, amongst other visits, one he 
had promised himself to Strachey at Sutton Court, "a 
greater rarity than my travels have afforded me ; for one 
may go a long way before one meets a friend." During 
his stay in Somersetshire, he attempted to try some exper- 
iments in the Mendip lead-mines with a barometer which 
had been sent to him for the purpose by Boyle. But the 
miners and their wives made a successful resistance. "The 



16 LOCKE. [chap. 

sight of the engine and my desire of going down some of 
their gruffs gave them terrible apprehensions. The wom- 
en, too, were alarmed, and think us still either projectors 
or conjurors." 

At the beginning of May, Locke was again in his rooms 
in Oxford. He seems to have lost no time in setting to 
work afresh on the studies which might qualify him to 
exercise the profession of medicine. In his letters to 
Boyle, he makes frequent reference to chemical experi- 
ments and to collecting plants for medical purposes. 

It is an unexplained circumstance that, notwithstanding 
a letter to the Hebdomadal Board from Lord Clarendon, 
then Chancellor of the University, signifying his assent to 
a dispensation, enabling Locke to accumulate the degrees 
of Bachelor and Doctor in Medicine, he never took those 
degrees. The obstacle may have arisen from himself, or, 
more probably, it may have been due to some sinister in- 
fluence on the Hebdomadal Board preventing the assent 
of that body to the required decree. Any way, it is cu- 
rious that eleven days after the date of Lord Clarendon's 
letter is dated the dispensation from the Crown (already 
referred to on page 13), enabling him to retain his stu- 
dentship, notwithstanding his neglect to enter holy orders. 

During the summer of 1666, we are introduced to one 
of the turning-points in Locke's life — his first acquaint- 
ance with Lord Shaftesbury, or, as he then was, Lord 
Ashley. Of the chequered career or the enigmatical char- 
acter of this celebrated nobleman it is no part of my task 
to speak. It is enough to say that, as an advocate of 
religious toleration and an opponent alike of sacerdotal 
claims in the Church and absolutist principles in the State, 
he appealed to Locke's warmest and deepest sympathies. 



il] CONNEXION WITH SHAFTESBURY. IT 

The acquaintance was made through David Thomas, an 
Oxford physician, and the occasion of it was Lord Ashley's 
coming to Oxford to drink the Astrop waters. The duty 
of providing these waters (Astrop being a village at some 
distance from Oxford) seems to have been entrusted by 
Thomas to Locke, but, there having been some miscarriage, 
Locke waited on Lord Ashley to excuse the delay. "My 
lord," says Lady Masham, " in his wonted manner, received 
him very civilly, accepting his excuse with great easiness, 
and, when Mr. Locke would have taken his leave of him, 
would needs have him to stay supper with him, being 
much pleased with his conversation. But if my lord was 
pleased with the company of Mr. Locke, Mr. Locke was 
yet more so with that of my Lord Ashley." The result 
of this short and apparently accidental interview was the 
beginning of an intimate friendship, which seems never 
afterwards to have been broken, and which exercised a de- 
cisive influence on the rest of Locke's career. 

On September 2 of this year broke out the Great Fire 
of London, which raged without intermission for three 
days and nights. Under the date of September 3 we rind 
in Locke's "Register," which was afterwards published in 
Boyle's General History of the Air, this curious entry : — 
"Dim reddish sunshine. This unusual colour of the air, 
which, without" a cloud appearing, made the sunbeams of 
a strange red dim light, was very remarkable. We had 
then heard nothing of the fire of London ; but it appeared 
afterwards to be the smoke of London, then burning, which, 
driven this way by an easterly wind, caused this odd phe- 
nomenon." The Register, in which this entry is made 
begins on June 24, 1666, and contains, with many inter- 
missions, the observations made by Locke, in Oxford and 
London, up to June 30, 1683, on the readings of the 
2 



18 LOCKE. [chap. 

" thermoscope," the " baroscope," and the " hygroscope," 
together with the direction of the wind and the state of 
the weatl er. It not only aifords valuable evidence of 
Locke's whereabouts at different times, but also shows the 
interest which he took in physical research. 

In the early summer of 1667, Locke appears to have 
taken up his residence with Lord Ashley in London, and 
" from that time," according to Lady Masham, " he was 
with my Lord Ashley as a man at home, and lived in that 
family much esteemed, not only by my lord, but by all 
the friends of the family." His residence in Lord Ash- 
ley's family was, however, probably broken by occasional 
visits to Oxford. 

To this period of Locke's life may be assigned the un- 
published Essay concerning Toleration, which, with so much 
other valuable matter, is now for the first time accessible 
to the general reader in Mr. Fox-Bourne's Life. Tins 
Essay, it is not improbable, was written at the suggestion, 
or for the guidance of Lord Ashley, and so may have been 
widely circulated amongst the advocates of " toleration " 
and . " comprehension " — words which were at that time 
in the mouth of every man who took any interest in re- 
ligion or politics. As I shall have to speak expressly of the 
published Letters on Toleration, which were written about 
twenty years later, and which contain substantially the 
same views as this earlier Essay, I shall not here detain 
the reader further than by giving him the general con- 
clusions at which Locke had now arrived. These may be 
stated summarily under three heads : first, " all speculative 
opinions and religious worship have a clear title to uni- 
versal toleration," and in these every man may use "a 
perfect uncontrollable liberty, without any guilt or sin at 
all, provided always that it be all done sincerely and out 



3i.] CONNEXION WITH SHAFTESBURY. 19 

of conscience to God, according to the best of his knowl- 
edge and persuasion ;" secondly, " there are some opinions 
and actions which are in their natural tendency absolutely 
destructive to human society — as, that faith may be broken 
with heretics ; that one is bound to broach and propagate 
any opinion he believes himself; and such like; and, in 
actions, all manner of frauds and injustice — and these the 
magistrate ought not to tolerate at all ;" thirdly, another 
class of opinions and actions, inasmuch as their " influence 
to good or bad " depends on " the temper of the state and 
posture of affairs," u have a right to toleration so far only 
as they do not interfere with the advantages of the public, 
or serve any way to disturb the government." The practical 
result of the discussion is, that while " papists" should not 
" enjoy the benefit of toleration, because where they have 
power they think themselves bound to deny it to others," 
the " fanatics," as the various classes of Protestant Dis- 
senters were then called, should be at least " tolerated," if 
not " comprehended " in the national Church. Indeed, as 
to " comprehension," Locke lays down the general prin- 
ciple that " your articles in speculative opinions should be 
few and large, and your ceremonies in worship few and 
easy — which is latitudinism." 

This must have been one of the quietest and h°ppiest 
periods of Locke's life. He seems to have been unobtru- 
sively pursuing his studies, and gradually making the ac- 
quaintance of the great world and of public affairs through 
the facilities which his residence with Lord Ashley afford- 
ed him. Both his own occupations and his relations to 
the Ashley family appear to have been of a very miscel- 
laneous kind. Medicine, philosophy, and politics engaged 
his attention by turns. To Lord Ashley and his family 
he was at once general adviser, doctor, and friend. In 



20 LOCKE. [chap. 

June, 1668, after consulting various other medical men, 
he performed on Lord Ashley a difficult operation for the 
purpose of removing an " imposthume in the breast," and 
is said thus to have saved his life. To the only child, 
Anthony Ashley, he acted as tutor. But, by the time the 
youth was seventeen, Locke was entrusted with a far more 
delicate business than his tuition. This was no less than 
finding him a wife. After other young ladies had been 
considered and rejected, Locke accompanied his charge on 
a visit to the Earl of Rutland, at Belvoir Castle, and nego- 
tiated a match with the Earl's daughter, the Lady Dorothy 
Manners. The match seems to have been a happy one ; 
and Locke continued his services of general utility to the 
Ashley family by acting on more than one occasion as 
Lady Dorothy's medical attendant. On the 26th of Feb- 
ruary, 1670-71, he assisted at the birth of a son and heir, 
Anthony, who subsequently became third Earl of Shaftes- 
bury, and who, as the author of the Characteristics, oc- 
cupies a position of no inconsiderable importance in the 
history of English philosophy. It is on the evidence of 
this Earl of Shaftesbury that we learn the share taken 
by Locke in effecting the union of his father and mother. 
" My father was too young and inexperienced to choose 
a wife for himself, and my grandfather too much in busi- 
ness to choose one for him." The consequence was, that 
u all was thrown upon Mr. Locke, who* being already so 
good a judge of men, my grandfather doubted not of his 
equal judgment in women. He departed from him, en- 
trusted and sworn, as Abraham's head servant ' that ruled 
over all that he had,' and went into a far country 'to seek 
for his son a wife,' whom he as successfully found." 

Though so much of Locke's time seems to have been 
spent on medical studies and practice, he possessed no 



il] CONNEXION WITH SHAFTESBURY. 21 

regular qualification. In 1670 another attempt had been 
made, but in vain, to procure him the Doctor of Medicine's 
degree from the University of Oxford. Lord Ashley suc- 
cessfully enlisted the good services <of the Duke of Or- 
mond, the Chancellor of the University ; but on learning 
the opposition of Dean Fell and Dr. Allestree, Locke de- 
sired his patron to withdraw the application. Both now 
and on the former occasion, alluded to above (p. 16), the 
opposition was probably based on Locke's tendencies, 
known or suspected, to liberal views in religion ; nor would 
the connexion with Lord Ashley be at all likely to miti- 
gate the sternness of the college and university authorities. 
It had, of course, all along been open to him to proceed 
to the Doctor's degree in the ordinary way, by attending 
lectures and performing exercises; and whether he was 
prevented from doing so by the tediousness of the process, 
by the hope of attaining the degree through a shorter and 
easier method, or by a certain amount of indecision as to 
whether after all he would adopt the medical profession, 
we cannot say. Afterwards, we shall see, he proceeded to 
the degree of Bachelor of Medicine, but whether in the 
ordinary course, or by dispensation, is not known. 

As connected with Locke's medical pursuits, I may here 
mention his friendship with Sydenham. We do not know 
when the acquaintance commenced, but Sydenham writing 
to Boyle, so early as April 2, 1668, speaks of "my friend 
Mr. Locke." That Sydenham entertained great respect for 
the medical skill and judgment of Locke — who appears to 
have accompanied him in his visits to his patients, and, in 
turn, to have availed himself of Sydenham's assistance in 
attending the Ashley household — there can be no doubt. 
Writing to Mapletoft, their common friend, and a physi- 
cian of some eminence, in 1676, he savs: "You know how 



22 LOCKE. [chap. 

thoroughly my method [of curing fevers] is approved of 
by an intimate and common friend of ours, and one who 
has closely and exhaustively examined the subject — I mean 
Mr. John Locke, a man whom, in the acuteness of his in- 
tellect, in the steadiness of his judgment, and in the sim- 
plicity, that is, in the excellence, of his manners, I confi- 
dently declare to have amongst the men of our own time 
few equals and no superior." A number of notes and 
papers, still extant, attest the interest which Locke now 
took in medical studies, and the hopes with which he look- 
ed forward to improvements in medical practice. That 
the sympathy between him and Sydenham was very close, 
is evident from the writings of both. 

But, meanwhile, he was also busy with other pursuits. 
One of these was the administration, under Ashley, and 
the other " lords proprietors," of the colony of Carolina. 
In 1663 this colony had been granted by Charles the 
Second to eight " lords proprietors," of whom Ashley was 
one. Locke, when he went to live in Ashley's family, 
appears to have become, though without any formal ap- 
pointment, a sort of chief secretary and manager to the 
association. A vast amount of miscellaneous business 
seems to have been transacted by him in this capacity ; 
but what to us would be most interesting, if we could 
determine it, would be the share he took in drawing up 
the document entitled " The Fundamental Constitutions 
of Carolina," issued on the 1st of March, 1669-70. Many 
of the articles, embodying, as they do, a sort of modified 
feudalism, must have been distasteful to Locke, and it is 
hardly possible to suppose that he was the originator of 
them. But perhaps we may trace his hand in the articles 
on religion, between which and his views, as stated in his 
unpublished papers written before and his published works 



il] CONNEXION WITH SHAFTESBURY. 23 

written after this time, there is a large amount of corre- 
spondence. No man was to be permitted to be a freeman 
of Carolina unless he acknowledged a God, and agreed that 
God was to be publicly and solemnly worshipped. But 
within these limits any seven persons might constitute a 
church, provided that they upheld the duty of every man, 
if called on, to bear witness to the truth, and agreed on 
some external symbol by which such witness might be sig- 
nified. Any one, however, who did not belong to some 
such communion was to be regarded as outside the pro- 
tection of the law. The members of one church were not 
to molest or persecute those of another; and no man was 
to " use any reproachful, reviling, or abusive language 
against the religion of any church or profession, that being 
the certain way of disturbing the peace, and of hindering 
the conversion of any to the truth." Amongst the mis- 
cellaneous provisions in this code is one strictly forbidding 
any one to plead before a court of justice for money or 
reward ; and another, enacting that " every freeman of 
Carolina shall have absolute powder and authority over his 
negro slaves, of what opinion or religion soever." 

In 1668 Locke was elected a Fellow of the Royal So- 
ciety, and in 1669 and 1672 was placed on the Council, 
but he never appears to have taken much part in the pro- 
ceedings of the society. On the other hand, there seem to 
have been certain less formal meetings of a few friends, 
constituting possibly a sort of club, in the discussions of 
which he took a more active share. It was at one of these 
meetings that the conversation took place which led to 
Locke's writing his famous Essay (see page 127). Ac- 
cording to a marginal note made by Sir James Tyrrell in 
his copy of the first edition, now in the British Museum, 
the discussion on this occasion turned on ki the principles 



LOCKE. 



of morality and revealed religion. " The date of this 
memorable meeting was, according to the same authori- 
ty, the winter of 1673 ; but according to Lady Masham, it 
was 1670 or 1671. Anyway, there is an entry on the main 
subject of the Essay in Locke's Common -place Book, 
beginning " Sic cogitavit de intellectu humano Johannes 
Locke, anno 1671." In this brief entry the origin of all 
knowledge is referred to sense, and " sensible qualities " 
are stated to be " the simplest ideas we have, and the first 
object of our understanding " — a theory which, as we shall 
hereafter see, w r as supplemented in the Essay by the addi- 
tion to the ultimate sources of knowledge of simple ideas 
of reflection. The Essay itself was not published till near- 
ly twenty years after this date, in 1690. 

Locke's health had never been strong, and, in the years 
1670-72 he seems to have suffered much from a trouble- 
some cough, indicative of disease of the lungs. Connected 
with this illness was a short journey which he made in 
France, in the suite of the Countess of Northumberland, 
in the autumn of 1672. Soon after his return, his patron, 
who had lately been created Earl of Shaftesbury, was ap- 
pointed to the highest office of the State, the Lord High 
Chancellorship of England. Locke shared in his good fort- 
une, and was made Secretary of Presentations — that is, 
of the Chancellor's church patronage — with a salary of 
300/. a year. The modern reader, especially when he 
recollects Locke's intimacy with Shaftesbury, is surprised 
to find that he dined at the Steward's table, that he was 
expected to attend prayers three times a day, and that, 
when the Chancellor drove out in state, he was accustom- 
ed, with the other secretaries, to walk by the side of the 
coach, while, as " my lord" got in and out, he " went be- 
fore him bareheaded." The distinctions of rank were. 



ii.] CONNEXION WITH SHAFTESBURY. 25 

however, far more marked in those days than at present, 
and the high officers of state were still surrounded with 
much of the elaborate ceremonial which had obtained in 
the times of the Tudors. 

To the period of Locke's excursion in France, or that 
immediately succeeding it, we may refer a free translation 
— or rather, adaptation — of three of the Essais de Morale 
of Pierre Nicole, a well-known Jansenist, and the friend of 
Pascal and Arnauld. These Essays, which were translated 
for the use of the Countess of Shaftesbury, were apparent- 
ly not designed for publication, and, in fact, were first given 
to the world by Dr. Hancock, in 1828. They are mainly 
remarkable as affording evidence of the depth and sinceri- 
ty of Locke's religious convictions. 

Routine and official "duties now occupied much of his 
time, and must have interfered sadly with his favourite 
studies. From discussing the tangled and ambiguous poli- 
tics of this period I purposely refrain ; but there is one 
official act, recorded of Locke at this time, which places 
him in so incongruous a light that his biographer can 
hardly pass it over in silence. At the opening of the Par- 
liament which met on February 4, 1672-73, Shaftesbury, 
amplifying the King's Speech, made, though it is said un- 
willingly and with much concern, his famous defence of 
the Dutch war, and his attack on the Dutch nation, cul- 
minating in the words "Delenda est Carthago." Locke, 
we are sorry to find, though the act was a purely minis- 
terial one, stood at his elbow with a written copy, to 
prompt him in case of failure. 

On the 9th of November, 1673, Shaftesbury, who had 
incurred the displeasure of the king by his support of the 
Test Bill, and who was now looked on as one of the prin- 
cipal leaders of the Anti -Catholic party, was summarily 
C 2* 



26 LOCKE. [chap. 

dismissed from the Chancellorship. Locke, of course, lost 
at the same time the Secretaryship of Presentations; but 
he did not, as meaner men might have done, try to in- 
sinuate himself into wealth and power through other ave- 
nues. " When my grandfather," says the third Earl of 
Shaftesbury, " quitted the Court, and began to be in dan- 
ger from it, Mr. Locke now shared with him in dangers, 
as before in honours and advantages. He entrusted him 
with his secretest negotiations, and made use of his as- 
sistant pen in matters that nearly concerned the State 
and were fit to be made public." 

Locke's connexion with the affairs of the colony of Car- 
olina has already been mentioned. Business of this kind, 
owing to his relations with Shaftesbury, multiplied upon 
him, and on the 15th of October, 1673, shortly before 
Shaftesbury's fall, he w T as sworn in as Secretary to the 
Council of Trade and Foreign Plantations, with a salary 
of 500/. a year. This office he retained, notwithstanding 
the fall of his patron, till the dissolution of the Council on 
the 12th of March, 1674-75 ; but it appears that his sala- 
ry was never paid. 

On February 6, 1674-75, Locke proceeded to the degree 
of Bachelor of Medicine, having already been appointed 
to, or more probably promised, a Faculty Studentship at 
Ch. Ch., or, as Dean Prideaux, who had no love for him, 
puts it, " having wriggled into Ireland's faculty place." It 
is curious that his name does not appear in the Ch. Ch. 
books among the Faculty Students till the second quarter 
of 1675, and during that and the two subsequent quarters 
it is erased. The first time the name occurs without an 
erasure is in the first quarter of 1676. That there was 
much irregularity in the mode of appointing to College 
places at this time is evident. 






il] CONNEXION WITil SHAFTESBURY. 27 

His studentship being now secure, Lord Shaftesbury 
having, for a consideration in ready money, granted him 
an annuity of 100/. a year, and his estates in Somerset- 
shire, as well as one or two loans and mortgages, bringing 
him in a modest sum in addition, Locke, notwithstanding 
the non-payment of his salary as Secretary to the Council 
of Trade and Plantations, must have been in fairly com- 
fortable circumstances. He was dispensed from the ne- 
cessity of practising a profession, and, being also relieved 
from the pressure of public affairs, was free to follow his 
bent. It is probably to the leisure almost enforced upon 
him by the weakness of his health, as well as by the turn 
which public affairs had taken, and rendered possible by 
the independence of his position, that we are indebted for 
the maturity of reflection which forms so characteristic a 
feature of his subsequent writings. 




CHAPTER III. 



RESIDENCE IN FRANCE. FURTHER RELATIONS WITH 

SHAFTESBURY. EXPULSION FROM CHRIST CHURCH. 

The state of Locke's health had long rendered it desirable 
that he should reside in a warmer climate, and his release 
from official duties now removed any obstacle that there 
might formerly have been to his absence from England. 
The place which he selected for his retirement was Mont- 
pellier, at that time the most usual place of resort for in- 
valids who were able to leave their own country. He left 
London about the middle of November, 1675, with one 
if not more companions, and, after experiencing the or- 
dinary inconveniences of travel in those days of slow 
locomotion and poor inns, arrived at Paris on Nov. 24, 
and at Lyons on Dec. 11. At Lyons, he remarks of the 
library at the Jesuits' College that it " is the best that 
ever I saw, except Oxford, being one very high oblong 
square, with a gallery round, to come at the books." As 
before, in the North of Germany, so now in the South of 
France, he is a diligent observer of everything of interest, 
whether in the way of customs, occupations, or buildings, 
that falls in his way. He reached Montpellier on Christ- 
mas Day, and, except when, making short excursions in 
the neighbourhood, resided there continuously till the 
early spring of 1677, a period of fourteen months. At 



chap, iil] RESIDENCE IN FRANCE. 29 

Montpellier I have not been able to find any trace of him, 
either in the library or elsewhere, but his journal shows 
that he was much interested in the trade and products of 
the country, as well as in the objects which usually excite 
the curiosity of travellers. At Shaftesbury's instigation 
he wrote a little treatise, entitled, " Observations upon 
the Growth and Culture of Vines and Olives, the Pro- 
duction of Silk, and the Preservation of Fruits." It is 
curious that this small tract was never published till IV 6 6. 
It enumerates no less than forty-one varieties of grapes, 
and thirteen varieties of olives, which were grown in the 
neighbourhood of Montpellier. The ceremonial and doings 
of the States of Languedoc attracted Locke's attention, 
but he does not seem to have been present at their delib- 
erations. He witnessed, however, their devotions at the 
Church of Notre Dame, and remarks that the Cardinal 
Archbishop of Narbonne, who took part in the offices, 
kept " talking every now and then, and laughing with the 
bishops next him." The increasing incidence of the tax- 
ation on the lower and middle orders, and the growing 
poverty of the people, were topics which could hardly fail 
to arrest the attention of any intelligent traveller at that 
time. " The rent of lands in France is fallen one half in 
these few years, by reason of the poverty of the people. 
Merchants and handicraftsmen pay near half their gains." 
Among the more interesting entries in his journal are the 
following: — March 18 (n.s.). " Monsieur Rennaie, a gen- 
tleman of the town, in whose house Sir J. Rush worth lay, 
about four years ago, sacrificed a child to the devil — a 
child of a servant of his own — upon a design to get the 
devil to be his friend and help him to get some money. 
Several murders committed here since I came, and more 
attempted ; one by a brother on h\< sister, in the house 



30 LOCKE. [chap. 

where I lay." March 22 (n.s.): "The new philosophy 
of Des Cartes prohibited to be taught in universities, 
schools, and academies." It is plain from the journal that 
Locke's mind was now busy with the class of questions 
which were afterwards treated in the Essay : reflections 
on space, the extent of possible knowledge, the objects 
and modes of study, etc., being curiously interspersed with 
his notes of travel. In respect of health, he does not seem 
to have benefited much by his stay at Montpellier, which, 
as before stated, he left in the early spring of 1677. By 
slow stages he travelled to Paris, where he joined a pupil, 
the son of Sir John Banks, who had been commended to 
his supervision by Shaftesbury. This tutorial engage- 
ment lasted for nearly two years, and, in consequence of 
it, Locke remained in France longer than he had originally 
intended. In a letter written to his old friend Mapletoft 
from Paris in June, 1677, after some playful allusions to 
Mapletoft's love affairs, he says : — " My health is the only 
mistress I have a long time courted, and is so coy a one 
that I think it will take up the remainder of my days to 
obtain her good graces and keep her in good humour." 
There can be no question that, at this time, the state of 
his health was a matter of very serious concern to him, 
and it may possibly have been the cause of his not marry- 
ing. While in Paris he probably took a pretty complete 
holiday, seeing the sights, however, making occasional ex- 
cursions, forming new acquaintances, and exercising a gen- 
eral supervision over the education of his young charge. 

At the end of June, 1678, Locke, accompanied probably 
by his pupil, left Paris with the view of making his way 
leisurely to Montpellier, and thence to Rome. Pie trav- 
elled westward by way of Orleans, Blois, and Angers. 
On the banks of the Loire he noticed the poverty-stricken 



in.] RESIDENCE IN FRANCE. 31 

appearance of the country. " Many of the towns they 
call bourgs; but, considering how poor and few the houses 
in most of them are, would in England scarce amount to 
villages. The houses generally were but one story. . . . 
The gentlemen's seats, of which we saw many, were most 
of them rather bearing marks of decay than of thriving 
and being well kept." Montpellier was reached early in 
October, and, after a short stay there, be went on to 
Lyons, with the view of commencing his journey to Rome. 
But the depth of the snow on Mont Cenis w r as fatal to this 
design. Twice Locke had formed plans to visit Rome, 
" the time set, the company agreed," and both times he 
had been disappointed. u Were I not accustomed," he 
says, " to have fortune to dispose of me contrary to my 
design and expectation, I should be very angry to be thus 
turned out of my way, when I made sure in a few days 
to mount the Capitol and trace the footsteps of the Scipios 
and the Caesars." He had now nothing left but to turn 
back to Paris, where he remained till the following April. 
Here he seems to have spent his time in the same mis- 
cellaneous occupations as before. In the journal we find 
the following entry, dated Feb. 13: — "I saw the library 
of M. de Thou, a great collection of choice, well -bound 
books, which are now to be sold ; amongst others, a Greek 
manuscript, written by one Angelot, by which Stephens's 
Greek characters were first made." De Thou, the cele- 
brated historian of his own times, is better known under 
his Latinized name, Thuanus. On a Friday, he notes: — 
"The observation of Lent at Paris is come almost to noth- 
ing. Meat is openly to be had in the shambles, and a 
dispensation commonly to be had from the curate with- 
out difficulty. People of sense laugh at it, and in Italy 
itself, for twenty sous, a dispensation is certainly to be 



32 LOCKE. [chap. 

had." Then follows an amusing story of "that Bishop 
of Bellay, who has writ so much against monks and 
monkery." 

"A devout lady being sick, and besieged by the Carmes, made her 
will and gave them all : the Bishop of Bellay coming to see her, after 
it was done, asked whether she had made her will ; she answered 
yes, and told him how ; he convinced her it was not well, and she, de- 
siring to alter it, found a difficulty how to do it, being so beset by the 
friars. The bishop bid her not trouble herself for it, but presently 
took order that two notaries, habited as physicians, should come to 
her, who being by her bedside, the bishop told the company it was 
convenient all should withdraw ; and so the former will was revoked, 
and a new one made and put into the bishop's hands. The lady dies, 
the Carmes produce their will, and for some time the bishop lets 
them enjoy the pleasure of their inheritance ; but at last, taking out 
the other will, he says to them, ' Mes f reres, you are the sons of Eli- 
jah, children of the Old Testament, and have no share in the New.' " 

It may have been the influence of fashion, and the eager 
thirst for reputation, which were so rife in Parisian soci- 
ety, that inspired, shortly after Locke's return to Paris, the 
following reflections, as profound as they are true : — 

" The principal spring from which the actions of men take their 
rise, the rule they conduct them by, and the end to which they direct 
them, seems to be credit and reputation, and that which, at any rate, 
they avoid is in the greatest part shame and disgrace. This makes 
the Hurons and other people of Canada with such constancy endure 
inexpressible torments ; this makes merchants in one country and 
soldiers in another ; this puts men upon school divinity in one coun- 
try and physics and mathematics in another ; this cuts out the dress- 
es for the women, and makes the fashions for the men, and makes 
them endure the inconveniences of all. . . . Religions are upheld by 
this and factions maintained, and the shame of being disesteemed by 
those with whom one hath lived, and to whom one would recommend 
oneself, is the great source and director of most of the actions of 



in.] RESIDENCE IX FRANCE. 33 

men. ... He therefore that would govern the world well, had need 
consider rather what fashions he makes than what laws ; and to 
bring anything into use he need only give it reputation." 



Leaving Paris on the 22nd of April, 1679, Locke ar- 
rived, after his long absence, in London on the 30th of 
the same month. In the political world much had hap- 
pened whilst he had been away. Shaftesbury, already in 
disgrace when he left England, had been imprisoned in 
the Tower for a year ; but, by a sudden turn of fortune, 
was now reinstated in office as President of the newly- 
created Council. Of the circumstances which had brought 
about this change, the story of the Popish Plot, the dis- 
covery of the king's nefarious negotiations with Louis 
XIV., and the impeachment of Danby, it is not necessary 
here to speak. That Shaftesbury, when he saw the pros- 
pect of restoration to power, should wish to avail himself, 
as before, of Locke's advice and services, was only to be 
expected, and it was the expression of this desire which 
had hastened Locke's return to England. What, however, 
were the exact relations between the new Lord President 
and his former secretary during Shaftesbury's second ten- 
ure of office we are not informed. That the intercourse be- 
tween them was close and frequent, there can be no doubt, 
and, during the summer months of 1679, Locke again re- 
sided in his patron's house. But the king soon felt him- 
self strong enough to reassert his own will. Under date 
of the 15th of October, we read in the Privy Council Book, 
" The Earl of Shaftesbury's name was struck out of this 
list by his Majesty's command in Council." Consequent- 
ly, Shaftesbury was again in opposition, and Locke, though 
still his adviser and friend, and frequently an inmate of 
one or other of his houses, was released from the pressure 



34 LOCKE. [chap. 

of official business. One of his principal cares at this 
time was the supervision of the education of Shaftesbury's 
grandson. The father, Locke's former pupil, " born a 
shapeless lump, like anarchy," seems to have been but a 
poor creature, and the little Anthony, when only three 
years old, was made over to the formal guardianship of his 
grandfather. Locke, though not his instructor, seems to 
have kept a vigilant eye on the boy's studies and disci- 
pline, as well as on his health and bodily training. If we 
may trust the memory of the third earl, writing when in 
middle life, Locke's care was extended to his brothers and 
sisters as well as to himself. " In our education," he says, 
" Mr. Locke governed according to his own principles, 
since published by him " [in the Thoughts on Education], 
" and with such success that we all of us came to full 
years with strong and healthy constitutions — my own the 
worst, though never faulty till of late. I was his more 
peculiar charge, being, as eldest son, taken by my grand- 
father and bred under his immediate care, Mr. Locke hav- 
ing the absolute direction of my education, and to whom, 
next my immediate parents, as I must own the greatest ob- 
ligation, so I have ever preserved the highest gratitude and 
duty." The admiration and gratitude which the author 
of the Characteristics felt for his tutor did not, however, 
prevent him from criticising freely Locke's Theory of 
Ethics, and pronouncing it " a very poor philosophy." Of 
the Essay, as a whole, notwithstanding his vigorous pro- 
test on this particular point, Shaftesbury seems to have 
had as high an opinion as of its author. " It may as well 
qualify for business and the world as for the sciences and 
a university. No one has done more towards the recalling 
of philosophy from barbarity into use and practice of the 
world, and into the company of the better and politer sort, 



in.] FURTHER RELATIONS WITH SHAFTESBURY. 35 

who might well be ashamed of it in its other dress. No 
one has opened a better or clearer way to reasoning." 
(See the Letters of the third Earl of Shaftesbury to a 
Student at the University, Letters I., VIII.) 

Of the parliament which met at Oxford on the 21st of 
March, 1680-81, Locke was a close, and must have been 
an anxious, observer. He himself occupied his rooms at 
Christ Church, and for Shaftesbury's use he obtained the 
house of the celebrated mathematician, Dr. Wallis. The 
fullest account we have of the earlier proceedings of this 
parliament are contained in a letter from Locke to Stringer, 
Shaftesbury's secretary. It was prematurely dissolved on 
the 28th of March, Charles having succeeded in obtaining 
supplies from the French king instead of from his own 
subjects, and no other parliament was summoned during 
the remainder of the reign. 

So suspicious of treachery had the rival parties in the 
State now become, that most of the members of the Ox- 
ford parliament had been attended by armed servants, 
while the king was protected by a body of guards. The 
political tension was, of course, by no means relaxed, 
w r hen it became plain that the king intended to govern 
without a parliament, and w r e can hardly feel surprised 
that ministers took the initiative in trying to silence their 
opponents. On the 2nd of July, 1681, Shaftesbury was ar- 
rested in his London house on a charge of high treason, 
and, after a brief examination before the Council, was com- 
mitted to the tower. Notwithstanding many attempts, 
he failed to obtain a trial till Nov. 24, when he was in- 
dicted before a special commission at the ( >ld Bailey. 
The grand jury, amidst the plaudits of the spectators, 
threw out the bill, and on the 1st of December following 
he was released on bail. Shaftesbury's acquittal was re- 



36 LOCKE. [chap. 

ceived in London, and throughout the country, with ac- 
clamations of joy, but his triumph was only a brief one. 
The rest of his story is soon told. In the summer of 
1682, Shaftesbury, Monmouth, Russell, and a few others 
began to concert measures for a general rising against the 
king. The scheme was, of course, discovered, and Shaftes- 
bury, knowing that, from the new composition of the 
juries, he would have no chance of escape if another in- 
dictment were preferred against him, took to flight, and 
concealed himself for some weeks in obscure houses in 
the city and in Wapping. Meanwhile he tried, from his 
hiding-places, to foment an insurrection, but, when he 
found that the day which had been fixed on for the gen- 
eral rising had been postponed, he determined to seek 
safety for himself by escaping to Holland. After some 
adventures on the way, he reached Amsterdam in the be- 
ginning of December. To preserve him from extradition, 
he was on his petition admitted a citizen of Amsterdam, 
and might thus, like Locke, have lived to see the Revolu- 
tion, but on the 21st of January, 1682-83, he died, in ex- 
cruciating agonies, of gout in the stomach. 

There is no evidence to implicate Locke in Shaftesbury's 
design of setting the Duke of Monmouth on the throne, 
though it is difficult to suppose that he was not acquaint- 
ed with it. Any way, in the spring of 1681-82, he seems 
to have been engaged in some mysterious political move- 
ments, the nature of which is unknown to us. Humphrey 
Prideaux, afterwards Dean of Norwich, in his gossiping let- 
ters to John Ellis, afterwards an Under-Secretary of State, 
frequently mentions Locke, who was at this time resid- 
ing in Oxford. These notices were probably in answer 
to queries from Ellis, who was already in the employment 
of the government. From Prideaux's letters (recently 



i i J FURTHER RELATIONS WITH SHAFTESBURY. 37 

published by the Camden Society) I extract a few pas- 
sages, interesting not only as throwing light on Locke's 
mode of life at this period in Oxford, but also as showing 
the estimate of him formed by a political enemy who was 
a member of the same college : — 

"March 14, 1681 (o. s.). — John Locke lives a very cunning and un- 
intelligible life here, being two days in town and three out ; and no 
one knows where he goes, or when he goes, or when he returns. Cer- 
tainly there is some Whig intrigue a managing ; but here not a word 
of politics comes from him, nothing of news or anything else concern- 
ing our present affairs, as if he were not at all concerned in them. 

"March 19, 1681 (o.s.). — Where J. L. goes I cannot by any means 
learn, all his voyages being so cunningly contrived. He hath in his 
last sally been absent at least ten days, where I cannot learn. Last 
night he returned ; and sometimes he himself goes out and leaves 
his man behind, who shall then to be often seen in the quadrangle, 
to make people believe his master is at home, for he will let no one 
come to his chamber, and therefore it is not certain when he is there 
or when he is absent. I fancy there are projects afoot. 

" October 24, 1682. — John Locke lives very quietly with us, and not 
a word ever drops from his mouth that discovers anything of his 
henrt within. Now his master is fled, I suppose we shall have him 
altogether. He seems to be a man of very good converse, and that 
we have of him with content ; as for what else he is he keeps it to 
himself, and therefore troubles not us with it nor we him." 

After Shaftesbury's dismissal from the Presidentship of 
the Council, Locke must have had a considerable amount 
of leisure. The state of his health, however, and the con- 
sequent necessity of his frequently changing his residence, 
must have interfered a good deal with the progress of his 
studies. It is plain from his correspondence that he still 
took a lively interest in scientific and medical pursuits, 
nor does he appear to have yet given up the hope of prac- 
tising medicine in a regular way. By his friends he was 



38 LOCKE. [chap. 

usually called Dr. Locke, and at the period of life we are 
now considering he still continued to attend cases, and to 
make elaborate notes of treatment and diagnosis. 

It is probable that about this time Locke wrote the first 
of the Two Treatises on Government, which were publish- 
ed in 1690. Materials for the Essay were, undoubtedly, 
being slowly accumulated, and on a variety of questions, 
political, educational, ethical, theological, and philosoph- 
ical, his views were being gradually matured. Several 
pamphlets of a political character were, during these years, 
attributed to him, but we have his own solemn assevera- 
tion, in a letter written to the Earl of Pembroke in No- 
vember, 1684, that he was not the author u of any pam- 
phlet or treatise whatever, in part good, bad, or indiffer- 
ent;" that is, of course, of any published pamphlet or treat- 
ise, for he had already written a good deal in the way of 
essays, reflections, and commonplaces. 

After Shaftesbury's flight, Locke must have found his 
position becoming more and more unpleasant. During 
the year 1682 he had resided pretty constantly in Oxford, 
but we can well understand that Oxford was not then a 
very eligible place of residence for a whig and a latitudi- 
narian. He appears to have left it for good at the end of 
June or beginning of July, 1683, and to have retired for 
a while into Somersetshire. Shortly afterwards, however, 
he quitted England altogether, and when we next hear of 
him it is in Holland. That he was implicated in the Rye 
House plot is, on every ground, most improbable, notwith- 
standing the malicious insinuations of Prideaux to the 
contrary. Nor is there any evidence that he had any con- 
cern with the more respectable conspiracy of Monmouth, 
Russell, and Sidney. But in those times of plots and 
counter-plots, and arbitrary interference with the courts of 



in.] FURTHER RELATIONS WITH SHAFTESBURY. 39 

justice, any man who was in opposition to the government 
might well be in fear for his life or liberty. Specially 
would this be the case with Locke, who was well known 
as a friend and adherent of Shaftesbury. Moreover, had 
he been thrown into prison, the state of his health was 
such that his life would probably have been endangered. 
His flight, therefore, affords no countenance whatsoever to 
the supposition that he had been engaged in treasonable 
designs against the government. It would, I conceive, be 
no stain on Locke's character, had he, in those days of 
misgovernment and oppression, conspired to effect by vio- 
lent means a change in the succession, or even a trans- 
ference of the crown. But the fact that there is no evi- 
dence of his having done so removes almost all excuse for 
the tyrannical act which I am presently about to describe. 
In connexion with Locke's flight to Holland, it may be 
mentioned that the idea of leaving England was by no 
means new to him. The proposal to emigrate together to 
Carolina or the lie de Bourbon, possibly, however, thrown 
out half in jest, is a frequent topic in the correspondence 
with his French friend, Thoynard, during the two or three 
years succeeding his return from France. That he was 
becoming disgusted with the political game then being 
played in England, and despondent as to the future of his 
country, is evident from several letters written by him at 
this time. 

The account of Locke's life in Holland may be deferred 
to the next chapter. It will be convenient here to tell the 
story of his expulsion from Christ Church, which marks 
the issue of his connexion with Shaftesbury, and of the 
part which he had so far taken in English politics. We 
have already seen that he was suspected of having written 
a number of political pamphlets against the government. 



40 LOCKE. [chap. 

This suspicion was not unnatural, Locke being a literary 
man and a well-known friend of Shaftesbury. After his 
retirement to Holland, the suspicion of his having writ- 
ten various pamphlets, supposed to have been printed in 
that country, and surreptitiously conveyed into England, 
was one which very naturally occurred, and, according to 
Prideaux, he was now specially suspected of having writ- 
ten " a most bitter libel, published in Holland in English, 
Dutch, and French, called a Hue and Cry after the Earl 
of Essex's murder." But the government had no proof 
of these surmises, and therefore no right to take action 
upon them. Their suspicions were, however, probably 
sharpened by the malicious reports of their spies in Ox- 
ford, and by the not unlikely supposition that Locke was 
taking part in the intrigues, on behalf of Monmouth, now 
being carried on in Holland. For the latter suspicion, as 
for the one with regard to the authorship of the pam- 
phlets, it happens that there was no justification, but it is 
impossible to deny that there was some 'prima facie ground 
for it. Compared with other arbitrary acts of the reigns 
of Charles II. and James II. , the measures taken against 
Locke do not seem exceptionally severe, utterly abhorrent 
as they would doubtless be to the usages of a constitu- 
tional age. 

About fourteen or fifteen months had elapsed since his 
disappearance from England, when, on the 6th of Novem- 
ber, 1684, Lord Sunderland signified to Dr. Fell, Dean of 
Christ Church, who was also Bishop of Oxford, the pleas- 
ure of the king that Locke should be removed from his 
studentship, asking the Dean at the same time to specify 
" the method of doing it." " The method " adopted by 
the Dean was to attach a " moneo " to the screen in the 
college hall, summoning Locke to appear on the 1st of 



in.] EXPULSION FROM CHRIST CHURCH. 41 

January following, to answer the charges against him. 
After admitting that Locke, as having a physician's place 
among the students, was not obliged to residence, and that 
he was abroad upon want of health, the Dean, in his reply 
to Sunderland, proceeds to show his readiness to accom- 
modate himself to the requirements of the court : " Not- 
withstanding that, I have summoned him to return home, 
which is done with this prospect, that if he comes not 
back, he will be liable to expulsion for contumacy ; if he 
does, he will be answerable to your lordship for what he 
shall be found to have done amiss." Ingenious, however, 
as the " method" was, it was not expeditious enough to 
satisfy the court. A second letter from Sunderland, en- 
joining Locke's immediate expulsion, was at once despatch- 
ed. This curious document is still shown in the Christ 
Church library, and, as I have never seen an exact transcript 
of it, I here subjoin one : 

" To the Right Reverend Father in God, John, Lord Bishop of Oxon, 
Dean of Christ Church, and our trusty and well-beloved the Chap- 
ter there. 

" Right Reverend Father in God, and trusty and well-beloved, we 
greet you well. Whereas we have received information of the fac- 
tious and disloyall behaviour of Lock, one of the students of that 
our Colledge ; we have thought fit hereby to signify our will and 
pleasure to you, that you forthwith remove him from his said stu- 
dent's place, and deprive him of all the rights and advantages there- 
unto belonging. For which this shall be your warrant. And so we 
bid you heartily farewell. 

" Given at our Court at Whitehall, 11th day of November, 1684, in 
the six and thirtieth year of our Reigne. 

u By his Majesty's command, Sundkrland." 

On the 16th of November the Dean signified that his 
Majesty's command was fully executed, whereupon Lord 
1) 3 



42 LOCKE. [ghap. 

Sunderland acquainted him that his Majesty was well sat- 
isfied with the college's ready obedience. 

Thus the most celebrated man, perhaps, that Oxford 
has sheltered within her walls since the Reformation was 
summarily ejected at the dictation of a corrupt and arbi- 
trary court. The Dean and Chapter might have won our 
admiration had they resisted the royal command, as was 
done in the next reign by the Fellows of Magdalen College, 
but it was hardly to be expected that they should risk 
their own goods and liberties in attempting to afford a 
protection which, after all, would have been almost certain- 
ly attempted in vain. Moreover, as Lord Grenville (Ox- 
ford and Locke) has pointed out, Christ Church being a 
royal foundation, the Dean and Chapter might well regard 
the king as having full power either to appoint or remove 
any member of the foundation, and themselves as only 
registering his decree. The same power, as we have al- 
ready seen, had been exercised in Locke's favour by the 
dispensation from entering holy orders accorded by the 
crown in 1666. 

After the Revolution, Locke petitioned William the 
Third for the restitution of his studentship, but " rinding," 
according to Lady Masham, that "it would give great dis- 
turbance to the society, and dispossess the person that was 
in his place, he desisted from that pretension." 

In Fell's first letter to Sunderland, he speaks of Locke's 
extreme reserve and taciturnity. As this seems to have 
been one of his distinguishing characteristics, and as the 
passage is otherwise remarkable, as showing the vigilance 
with which Locke was watched at Oxford, I give it at 
length : 

" I have for divers years had an eye upon him ; but so close has 
his guard been on himself that, after several strict inquiries, I may 



in.] EXPULSION FROM CHRIST CHURCH. 43 

confidently affirm there is not any one in the College, however famil- 
iar with him, who has heard him speak a word either against or so 
much as concerning the Government; and although very frequently, 
both in public and in private, discourses have been purposely intro- 
duced to the disparagement of his master, the Earl of Shaftesbury, 
his party and designs, he could never be provoked to take any no- 
tice or discover in word or look the least concern; so that I believe 
there is not in the world such a master of taciturnity and passion." 



This account of Locke's reserve, as well as the illustra- 
tion here incidentally afforded of the abominable system 
of college espionage which then prevailed in Oxford, is 
amply confirmed by Prideaux's letters to Ellis. In the 
Thoughts on Education parents and tutors are recom- 
mended to mould children betimes to this mastery over 
their tongues. But the gift of silence was exercised by 
Locke only in those matters where other men have no 
right to be inquisitive or curious — matters of private con- 
cernment and of individual opinion. In conversation on 
general topics, he seems always to have been open and co- 
pious. His taciturnity, though the effect of prudence and 
self-control, was certainly not due to any lack of geniality 
or any want of sympathy with others. 



CHAPTER IV. 

RESIDENCE IN HOLLAND. THE REVOLUTION. RETURN TO 

ENGLAND. PUBLICATION OF THE " ESSAY " AND OTHER 

WORKS. 

Locke must have landed in Holland in one of the autumn 
months of 1683, being then about fifty-one years of age. 
We are not able, however, to trace any of his movements 
till the January of 1683-84, when he was present, by in- 
vitation of Peter Guenellon, the principal physician of 
Amsterdam, at the dissection of a lioness which had been 
killed by the intense cold of the winter. 

Through Guenellon, whom he had met during his stay 
in Paris, he must have made the acquaintance of the prin- 
cipal literary and scientific men at that time residing in or 
near Amsterdam. Amongst these was Philip van Lim- 
borch, then professor of theology among the Arminians or 
Remonstrants. The Arminians (called Remonstrants on 
account of the remonstrance which they had presented to 
the States- General in 1610) were the latitudinarians of 
Holland, and, though they had been condemned by the 
Synod of Dort in 1619, and had been subjected to a bit- 
ter persecution by the Calvinist clergy for some years fol- 
lowing, were now a fairly numerous body, possessing a 
theological seminary, and exercising a considerable in- 
fluence, not only in their own country, but over the minds 



chap, iv.] RESIDENCE IN HOLLAND. i:» 

of the more liberal theologians throughout Europe. The 
undogmatic, tolerant, and, if I may use the expression, eth- 
ical character of the Remonstrant theology must have had 
great attractions for Locke, and he and Limborch, united 
by many common sentiments, subsequently became fast 
friends. 

In the autumn of 1684 Locke made a tour of the coun- 
try, noting, as was usual with him, all objects and matters 
of interest, and evidently benefiting much in health by 
the diversion of travelling. Indeed, we are somewhat sur- 
prised to hear that his health derived more advantage 
from the air of Holland than from that of Montpellier* 
What, however, he put down to climate was, perhaps, at 
least equally due to pleasant companionship, and to the 
variety of interests — political, commercial, literary, and 
theological — which the Dutch nation at that time so pre- 
eminently afforded. Amongst the objects which attracted 
his attention was a sect of communistic mystics establish- 
ed near Leeuwarden. u They receive," he says, " all ages, 
sexes, and degrees, upon approbation. They live all in 
common ; and whoever is admitted is to give with him- 
self all he has to Christ the Lord — that is, the Church — 
to be managed by officers appointed by the Church. 
These people, however, were very shy to give an account 
of themselves to strangers, and they appeared inclined to 
dispense their instruction only to those whom ' the Lord, 1 
as they say, ' had disposed to it,' and in whom they saw 
' signs of grace ;' which i signs of grace ' seem to me to be, 
at last, a perfect submission to the will and rules of their 
pastor, Mr. Yonn, who, if I mistake not, has established to 
himself a perfect empire over them. For though their 
censures and all their administrations be in appearance in 
their Church, yet it is easy to perceive how at last it deter- 



46 LOCKE. [chap. 

mines in him. He is dominus factotum ; and though I 
believe they are, generally speaking, people of very good 
and exemplary lives, yet the tone of voice, manner, and 
fashion of those I conversed with seemed to make one 
suspect a little of Tartuffe." After Locke's experiences 
of the Puritan ministers in his early life, the character of 
Mr. Yonn was, probably, by no means new to him, though 
he now repeated his acquaintance with it under novel cir- 
cumstances. 

In November Locke was again in Amsterdam, and here 
he heard of Dr. Fell's " moneo," summoning him back to 
Christ Church. At first it would seem that he resolved 
to comply with it, but the intelligence of the " moneo" 
must soon have been followed by that of his deprivation, 
and thus he was saved from the dangers which might have 
befallen him had he returned to England. In more ways 
than one, his continued absence abroad was probably an 
advantage to him. " In Holland," says Lady Masham, 
"he had full leisure to prosecute his thoughts on the sub- 
ject of Human Understanding — a work which, in proba- 
bility, he never would have finished had he continued in 
England." The winter of this year was spent in Utrecht 
and devoted to study — probably to the preparation of the 
Essay on Human Understanding. But this quiet mode 
of life was quickly coming to an end. On the 6th of 
February, 1684-85, Charles the Second had died; and, 
though the succession of the Duke of York was at first 
undisputed, Monmouth, the natural son of the late king, 
was soon persuaded by his impatient and injudicious fol- 
lowers to head the insurrection which resulted in his de- 
feat and execution. From Monmouth's intrigues Locke 
had always held aloof, " having no such high opinion of 
the Duke of Monmouth as to expect anything from his 



.] RESIDENCE IN HOLLAND. 47 

undertaking." But prudence, in truose days of fierce po- 
litical hatred and unblushing- fabrications, was often of 
yery little avail. Locke was well known as an adherent of 
Shaftesbury, and Shaftesbury had long and ardently fa- 
voured Monmouth's pretensions. Moreover, stories tend- 
ing to discredit him with the advisers of the Court, and 
to connect his name with the plots of the other exiles, 
were probably circulating pretty freely at this time. On 
the 7th of May — a few days after Argyle had set out on 
his ill-starred expedition to Scotland, and while Monmouth 
was still preparing for his descent on the west coast of 
England — Colonel Skelton, who had been sent over as a 
special envoy to the Hague, presented to the States-Gen- 
eral a list of persons regarded as dangerous by the English 
Government, and demanded their surrender. On this list 
Locke's name stood last, having been added, we are told, 
by Sir George Downing, the English representative at the 
Dutch Court, but whether or not in pursuance of further 
instructions from home we do not know. Locke was at 
this time living at Utrecht, and it was at once arranged 
that he should be concealed in the house of Dr. Veen, 
of Amsterdam, the father-in-law of his old acquaintance, 
Dr. Guenellon. Though it was necessary, for appearance' 
sake, that he should keep strictly to his hiding-place, ho 
does not seem to have incurred any real danger. The 
municipal authorities of Amsterdam had too great a hor- 
ror of Popery and too much sympathy with liberty to 
show any marked zeal in carrying out the wishes of the 
English king ; nor does the Prince of Orange himself ap- 
pear to have been very eager to hunt out the fugitives, 
provided they went through the decent ceremony of con- 
cealing themselves from the ministers of justice. To 
Locke the confinement was doubtless irksome; but lie was 



48 LOCKE. [chap. 

solaced by the visits of his friends, especially of Limborch, 
and the monotony of his solitude was broken by a visit of 
a few weeks to Cleve. Here, however, he does not appear 
to have felt so safe as at Amsterdam ; and, consequently, 
he soon returned to his old quarters, assuming the name 
of Dr. Van der Linden, as at Cleve he had assumed that 
of Lamy. Meanwhile, two of his friends in England — 
William Penn, the celebrated Quaker, and the Earl of 
Pembroke, to whom he afterwards dedicated the Essay — 
were moving the king for a pardon. The latter, writing 
to Locke on the 20th of August, informs him that the 
king "bid me write to you to come over; I told him I 
would then bring you to kiss his hand, and he was fully 
satisfied I should." Locke, however, appears to have had 
little confidence in the king's sincerity, and, perhaps, no 
desire to compromise any political action that might be 
open to him in the future by making formal submission 
to a monarch who was tolerably certain to work out his 
own ruin. He still remained in concealment, and replied 
that, " having been guilty of no crime, he had no occasion 
for a pardon." But in May, 1686, all fear of arrest was 
removed by the appearance of a new proclamation of the 
States-General, in which his name was not included, and 
henceforth he was enabled to move about with perfect 
freedom. 

The name of Limborch, one of the friends whom Locke 
made in Holland, has already been mentioned. A long 
series of letters which passed between them, beginning 
with Locke's arrival at Cleve in September, 1685, and 
ending only a few weeks before his death, is still extant, 
though some are still unpublished. This correspondence 
is interesting, not only as throwing light on Locke's pur- 
suits, but also as affording a free expression of his theo- 



iv.] RESIDENCE IN HOLLAND. 49 

logical opinions. Thus, in a letter written to Limborch 
soon after his arrival at Cleve, with reference to a work 
recently published by Le Clerc, he acknowledges his per- 
plexities respecting the plenary inspiration of the Bible. 
" If all things which are contained in the sacred books 
are equally to be regarded as inspired, without any dis- 
tinctions, then we give philosophers a great handle for 
doubting of our faith and sincerity. If, on the contrary, 
some things are to be regarded as purely human, how 
shall we establish the divine authority of the Scriptures, 
without which the Christian religion will fall to the 
ground ? What shall be our criterion ? Where shall we 
draw 7 the line V He applies to Limborch for help. " For 
many things which occur in the canonical books, long be- 
fore I read this treatise, have made me anxious and doubt- 
ful, and I shall be most grateful if you could remove my 
scruples." From the character of his theological writ- 
ings, composed during the latter years of his life, it would 
appear that these scruples were afterwards either removed 
or set aside. 

With Le Clerc (Joannes Clericus) himself Locke first 
became personally acquainted after his return to Amster- 
dam in the winter of 1685-86. Le Clerc was still young, 
having been born at Geneva in 1657, but he had already 
acquired considerable reputation both as a philosopher 
and as a theologian. As a philosopher, he had at first 
embraced the doctrines of Descartes, but, in after-life, he 
leaned rather to those views which, a few years after the 
time of which I am writing, became famous by the pub- 
lication of Locke's Essay. As a divine, his theology was 
liberal and critical beyond even that of the Remonstrant 
School. He questioned the Mosaic authorship of the 
Pentateuch, regarded some of the books of the old Testa- 
3* 



50 LOCKE. [chap. 

merit as of purely human origin, and, in his treatment of 
the miracles and of Christian doctrine, rationalized so far 
as to expose himself to the charge of Socinianism, though 
he himself warmly repudiated the imputation. In literary 
activity and enterprise he yielded to no other author of 
the age. Such a man, full of energy and of novel views, 
ready to entertain and discuss any question of interest in 
theology, criticism, or philosophy, must have been pecul- 
iarly acceptable to an exile like Locke, whose mind was 
now engaged with just the same problems that were occu- 
pying Le Clerc. The intimacy between the two students, 
though never so affectionate as that between Locke and 
Limborch, soon became a close one. Though widely sep- 
arated in age, and though differing, probably, in many of 
their specific opinions, they were conscious that they were 
travelling the same road — a way then little frequented — 
the way which led from the received tenets of the churches 
and the schools to the arena of free inquiry and impartial 
investigation. 

In the winter of 1685-86, Locke, while still hiding in 
Dr. Veen's house, employed himself in writing the famous 
Epistola de Tolerantia, addressed to Limborch. This 
tract w r as not, however, published till 1689, when it was 
almost immediately translated into English, Dutch, and 
French. Of the opinions expressed in this and the other 
letters on Toleration I shall have occasion to speak here- 
after, when describing Locke's theological views. It must 
be recollected that, though now in his fifty-fourth year, 
he had as yet published nothing of any importance. He 
had, indeed, for several years been slowly putting together 
the materials for many books ; but it is possible that his 
natural modesty, together with what seems to have been 
an excessive prudence, might have prevented him from 



iy.] RESIDENCE IN HOLLAND. .-,1 

giving any of his thoughts to the world, at least during 
his lifetime, had it not been for the fortunate circum- 
stances which brought him into contact with Le Clerc. 
At the time when the two friends were introduced to one 
another, Le Clerc was projecting the Bibliotheque Uni- 
verselle, one of the earliest literary and scientific reviews, 
and to this Locke soon became a constant contributor. 
In the July number of 1686 appears his method of a 
Commonplace Book, under the title, Methode Nouvelle de 
dresser des Recueils. The ice was now broken, and from 
this time onwards we shall find his publications follow 
one another in rapid succession. 

In September, 1686, Locke moved again to Utrecht, in- 
tending, apparently, to make a prolonged residence there ; 
but in December, for some mysterious reason with which 
we are not acquainted, though connected in all probability 
with English politics, he was threatened with expulsion 
from the city, and was obliged to return to Amsterdam. 
It seems, from his correspondence with Limborch, that 
he did not wish this expulsion to be talked about. At 
the same time, he accepted stoically the inconveniences to 
which it put him. " These are the sports of fortune, or 
rather the ordinary chances of human life, which come as 
naturally as wind and rain to travellers." At Amsterdam 
he remained for two months as the guest of his old friend, 
Dr. Guenellon, and then removed to Rotterdam, where, 
with occasional breaks, he resided during the rest of his 
stay in Holland. This removal was undoubtedly connect- 
ed with the turn which English politics were now taking 
at the Dutch Court'. Monmouth being now out of the 
way, the only quarter to which those who were weary of 
the Stuart despotism could look for redress was the H<>u<e 
of Orange. Secret negotiations were at this time going 



52 LOCKE. [chap. 

on with the Prince and Princess, and there can be no 
donbt that Locke was taking an active share in the schemes 
that were in preparation. Rotterdam was within a short 
distance of the Hague, and also a convenient place for car- 
rying on a correspondence with England as well as for 
meeting the Englishmen who landed in Holland. As soon 
as Locke arrived at Rotterdam his hands seems to have 
been tolerably full of political business. Writing to Lim- 
borch in February, 1686-87, he says, "To politics I gave 
but little thought at Amsterdam ; here I cannot pay much 
attention to literature." Mr. Fox Bourne conjectures that 
it was through Lord Mordaunt, afterwards Earl of Peter- 
borough, who shortly before this time had taken up his 
residence in Holland, that Locke was brought into person- 
al relations with the Prince and Princess. Any way, these 
relations gradually ripened into friendship, and a mutual 
feeling of respect and admiration seems soon to have 
grown up between him and the royal couple. 

While at Rotterdam, Locke resided with Benjamin Fur- 
ly, an English Quaker, who was a merchant of consider- 
able wealth and a great book-collector. At Furly's death, 
in 1714, the sale-catalogue of his books occupied nearly 
400 pages. Locke was thus at no loss for the instruments 
of his trade, and, notwithstanding his preoccupation in 
politics, he seems to have been working with fair assidu- 
ity at the Essay and on other literary subjects. In the 
number of the Bibliotheque Universelle for January, 
1687-88, appeared an abstract of the Essay, translated 
into French by Le Clerc, from a manuscript written by 
Locke, which is still extant. The epitome was announced 
as communicated by Monsieur Locke, and a note was ap- 
pended inviting criticisms, if anything false, obscure, or 
defective were remarked in the system. After the review 



iv.] RESIDENCE IN HOLLAND. 53 

had appeared, separate copies of the epitome were struck 
off, and the opuscule, with a short dedication to the Earl 
of Pembroke, was published in a separate form. Locke 
went to Amsterdam for the purpose of superintending the 
printing of the epitome, and appears to have been sorely 
tried by the " drunken " and " lying " workmen, who, 
•however, were all "good Christians," " orthodox believers," 
and " marked for salvation by the distinguishing L that 
stands on their door-posts, or the funeral sermon that they 
may have for a passport if they will go to the charge of 
it." On the 29th of February he returned to Furly's 
house, where he seems to have lived in great comfort, and 
on most intimate and affectionate terms with the family. 
One of the sons, a little boy of four or five years old, 
named Arent, was a special favourite, and is playfully 
alluded to in the letters to Furly as " my little friend !" 
Kindness to children seems always to have been one of 
Locke's characteristics, as it is of all men of simple man- 
ners and warm hearts. 

It was on the 1st of November, 1688, that William of 
Orange set out on his expedition to England. Locke still 
remained in Holland, and appears to have had frequent 
interviews with the Princess Mary, who was waiting till 
she could with safety join her husband. At last the word 
was given from England, and, after being detained for 
some time by unfavourable weather, the royal party, ac- 
companied by Locke and Lady Mordaunt, left the Hague 
on the 11th of February, 1688-89. They arrived at 
Greenwich on the following day. It was with mixed feel- 
ings that Locke took leave of the country where he had 
been entertained so long, and where he had formed so 
many warm and congenial friendships. Writing to Lim- 
borch shortly before his departure, he says, "There are 



54 LOCKE. [chap. 

many considerations which urge me not to miss this op- 
portunity of sailing: the expectation of my friends; my 
private affairs, which have now been long neglected ; the 
number of pirates in the channel; and the charge of the 
noble lady (Lady Mordaunt) with whom I am about to trav- 
el. But I trust that you will believe me when I say that I 
have found here another country, and I might almost say 
other relations; for all that is dearest in that expression — 
good-will, love, kindness — bonds that are stronger than 
blood — I have experienced amongst you. It is owing to 
this fellow-feeling, which has always been shown to me 
by your countrymen, that, though absent from my own 
people and exposed to every kind of trouble, I have never 
yet felt sick at heart." 1 Still, it must have been with a 
thrill of delight that, after an absence of more than five 
years, he once more stepped on the shores of his native 
land, and felt that a new era of liberty and glory had 
dawned for her. 

About a week after his arrival in England, Locke was 
offered, through Lord Mordaunt, the post of ambassador 
to Frederick the First, Elector of Brandenburg. The let- 
ter to Lord Mordaunt, in which he declines the post, shows 
the feeble condition in which, notwithstanding all his pre- 
cautions, his health still continued. " It is the most touch- 
ing displeasure I have ever received from that weak and 
broken constitution of my health, which has so long threat- 
ened my life, that it now affords me not a body suitable 
to my mind in so desirable an occasion of serving his Maj- 
esty. . . . What shall a man do in the necessity of applica- 
tion and variety of attendance on business who sometimes, 

1 It should be mentioned, perhaps, that the correspondence be- 
tween Locke and Limborch is in Latin. 



iv.] RETURN TO ENGLAND. 55 

after a little motion, has not breath to speak, and cannot 
borrow an hour or two of watching from the night with- 
out repaying it with a great waste of time the next day ?" 
But there was another reason, besides his health, why he 
could not accept a mission to the Court of Brandenburg. 
"If I have reason to apprehend the cold air of the coun- 
try, there is yet another thing in it as inconsistent with 
my constitution, and that is their warm drinking." It 
was true that he might oppose obstinate refusal, but then 
that would be to take more care of his own health than 
of the king's business. " It is no small matter in such 
stations to be acceptable to the people one has to do with, 
in being able to accommodate one's self to their fashions ; 
and I imagine, whatever I may do there myself, the know- 
ing what others are doing is at least one half of my busi- 
ness, and I know no such rack in the world to draw out 
men's thoughts as a well-managed bottle. If, therefore, it 
were fit for me to advise in this case, I should think it 
more for the king's interest to send a man of equal parts 
that could drink his share than the soberest man in the 
kingdom." But, though Locke shrank from this post, the 
importance of which could hardly be exaggerated, for Fred- 
erick was the ally on whom William most confided in his 
opposition to Louis the Fourteenth, he was ready to place 
his services at the disposal of the Government for domes- 
tic work. "If there be anything wherein I may flatter 
myself I have attained any degree of capacity to serve his 
Majesty, it is in some little knowledge I perhaps may have 
in the constitutions of my country, the temper of my 
countrymen, and the divisions amongst them, whereby I 
persuade myself I may be more useful to him at home, 
though 1 cannot but see that such an employment would 
be of greater advantage to myself abroad, would but my 



56 LOCKE. [chap. 

health assent to it." The disinterested patriotism of this 
letter was only of a piece with the whole of Locke's po- 
litical life. He was next offered the embassy to Vienna, 
and, in fact, invited to name any diplomatic appointment 
which he would be prepared to accept ; bat he regarded 
his health as an insuperable bar to work of this kind at so 
critical a time in the history of Europe. Having declined 
all foreign employment, he was now named a Commis- 
sioner of Appeals, an office with small emolument and not 
much work, which he appears to have retained during the 
remainder of his life. This office seems to have been given 
to him partly as a compensation for the arrears of salary 
due under the late Government; for, with an exhausted 
exchequer, it was impossible to satisfy such claims by im- 
mediate payment. 

Locke's health suffered considerably by his return to 
London. Writing to Limborch shortly after his arrival, 
and complaining of the worry caused him by the pressure 
of private affairs and public business, the climax of all his 
grievances, we are hardly surprised to find, is the injury to 
his health " from the pestilent smoke of this city " (Malig- 
7ius hujus urbis fumus). Amongst the public affairs which 
claimed his attention, the foremost, doubtless, was the at- 
tempt then being made to widen the basis of the National 
Church by a measure of comprehension, as well as to re- 
lieve of civil disabilities the more extreme or scrupulous 
of the sectaries by what was called a measure of indul- 
gence or toleration. Locke, of course, with his friend 
Lord Mordaunt, took the most liberal side open to him as 
respects these measures; but he complains that the epis- 
copal clergy were unfavourable to these as well as to other 
reforms, whether to their own advantage and that of the 
State it was for them to consider. Unfortunately both 



iv.] RETURN TO ENGLAND. 57 

for the Church and nation, the issue of the religious strug- 
gles which were carried on at the beginning of William's 
reign was, on the whole, in favor of the less tolerant party. 
The Comprehension Bill, after being violently attacked 
and languidly defended, was dropped altogether. The 
Toleration Bill, though passed by pretty general consent, 
and affording a considerable measure of relief on the ex- 
isting law, was entirely of the nature of a compromise, and 
what we should now note as most remarkable in it is the 
number of its provisos and exceptions. No relief was 
granted to the believer in transubstantiation or the disbe- 
liever in the Trinity. No dissenting minister, moreover, 
was allowed to exercise his vocation unless he subscribed 
thirty-four out of the Thirty-nine Articles, together with 
the greater part of two others. The Quakers had to 
make a special declaration of belief in the Holy Trinity 
and in the Divine inspiration of the Scriptures. The 
measure of toleration which Locke would have been pre- 
pared to grant, it need hardly be said, far exceeded that 
which was accorded by the Act. Speaking of the law re- 
cently passed in a letter to Limborch on the 6th of June, 
he uses apologetic language. " Toleration has indeed been 
granted, but not with that latitude w T hich you and men 
like you, true Christians without ambition or envy, would 
desire. But it is something to have got thus far. On 
these beginnings I hope are laid the foundations of liberty 
and peace on which the Church of Christ will hereafter be 
established." In a subsequent letter, speaking again of 
the same law, he says, " People will always differ from one 
another about religion, and carry on constant strife and 
war, until the right of every one to perfect liberty in these 
matters is conceded, and they can be united in one body 

.by a bond of mutual charity." If there be any truth in 
E 



58 LOCKE. [chap. 

the tradition to which Lord King alludes, that Locke him- 
self negotiated the terms of the Toleration Act, he must 
have regarded it simply as an instalment of religious lib- 
erty, the utmost that could be procured under the circum- 
stances, and an earnest of better things to come. 

On William's accession to the throne, one only of the 
English Sees was vacant, the Bishopric of Salisbury. To 
this he nominated the famous Gilbert Burnet, who had 
been one of his advisers in Holland. Locke, in one of his 
letters to Limborch, tells a rather malicious story of the 
new prelate. When he paid his first visit to the king 
after his consecration, his Majesty observed that his hat 
was a good deal larger than usual, and asked him what 
was the object of so very much brim. The bishop replied 
that it was the shape suitable to his dignity. " I hope," 
answered the king, " that the hat won't turn yout head." 

The topic that most interested Locke probably at this 
time, next to the political regeneration of his country, was 
the approaching publication of the Essay. The work 
must have been finished, or all but finished, when he left 
Holland. In May, 1689, he wrote the dedication to the 
Earl of Pembroke, and the printing commenced shortly 
afterwards. The proof-sheets were sent to Le Clerc. As 
before at Amsterdam, the printers appear to have caused 
him some trouble, but the book was in the booksellers' 
shops early in 1690. It is a fine folio, "printed by Eliz. 
Holt for Thomas Basset at the George in Fleet Street, 
near St. Dunstan's Church." Locke received 30/. for the 
copyright. But when we remember that Milton only 
lived to receive 10/. for Paradise Lost, we cannot feel 
much surprise at Locke's rate of payment. The days 
when authorship was. to become a lucrative profession 
were still far distant in England. 



iv.] PUBLICATION OF THE "ESSAY," ETC. 59 

Previously to the publication of the Essay, in the 
spring of 1689, the Epistola de Tolerantia had appeared 
at Gouda, in Holland ; but it was published anonymously, 
and apparently without Locke's knowledge, the responsi- 
bility of giving it to the world being undertaken by Lim- 
borch, to whom it had been addressed. On the title-page 
are some mysterious letters, the invention, probably, of 
Limborch : " Epistola de Tolerantia ad Clarissimum Virum 
T. A. R. P. T. 0. L. A. Scripta a P. A. P. O. I. L. A." These 
being interpreted are, " Theologia3 Apud Remonstrantes 
Professorem, Tyrannidis Osorem, Limborchium Amstelo- 
damenscm ;" and " Pacis Amico, Persecutionis Osore, 
Joanne Lockio Anglo." Dutch and French translations 
were issued almost immediately, and the book at once 
created considerable discussion on the Continent ; but it 
does not at the first appear to have excited much atten- 
tion in England. Locke himself was for some time un- 
able to obtain a copy. In the course of the year, however, 
it was translated into English by one William Popple, an 
Unitarian merchant residing in London. In the preface 
the translator, alluding to recent legislation, says, " We 
have need of more generous remedies than what have yet 
been made use of in our distemper. It is neither decla- 
rations of indulgence nor acts of comprehension, such as 
have as yet been practised or projected amongst us, that 
can do the work. Absolute liberty, just and true liberty, 
equal and impartial liberty, is the thing that we stand in 
need of." 

Locke affords a curious instance of a man who, having 
carefully shunned publication up to a late period of life, 
then gave forth a series of works in rapid succession. It 
would seem as if he had long mistrusted his own powers, 
or as if he had doubted of the expediency of at once 



60 LOCKE. [chap. 

seeking a wide circulation for his views, but that, having 
once ventured to reveal himself to the public, he was 
emboldened, if not impelled, to proceed. Early in 1690, 
there appeared not only the Essay, but also the Two 
Treatises of Government. These were published anony- 
mously, but it must soon have been known that Locke 
was their author. For reasons which I have given in 
another chapter, the former of the two treatises, which 
is a criticism of Sir Robert Filmer's Patriarcha, seems to 
have been written between 1680 and 1685, the latter dur- 
ing the concluding period of Locke's stay in Holland, 
while the English Revolution was being prepared and 
consummated. 

The translation of the Epistle on Toleration soon pro- 
voked a lively controversy. To one answer, that by Jonas 
Proast, Locke replied in a Second Letter concerning Tol- 
eration, signed by Philanthropic, and dated May 27, 1690. 
Proast, as the manner is in such controversies, replied 
again, and Locke wrote a Third Letter for Toleration, 
again signed Philanthropus, and dated June 20, 1692. 
After many years' silence, Proast wrote a rejoinder in 
1704, and to this Locke replied in the Fourth Letter for 
Toleration, which, however, he did not live to publish, or, 
indeed, to complete. It appeared amongst his Posthu- 
mous Works. These Letters on Toleration doubtless ex- 
ercised great influence in their day, and probably con- 
tributed, in large measure, to bring about the more en- 
lightened views on this subject which in this country, at 
least, are now all but universal. 

The authorship of the Letters on Toleration, though it 
could hardly fail to be pretty generally known, was first 
distinctly acknowledged by Locke in the codicil to his 
will. Limborch, on being hard pressed, had divulged it, 



iv.] PUBLICATION OF THE "ESSAY," ETC. Gl 

in tlie spring of 1690, to Guenellon and Veen, but they 
appear, contrary to what generally happens in such cas 5, 
to have kept the secret to themselves. Locke, however, 
was much irritated at the indiscretion of Limborch, and 
for once wrote him an angry letter. " If you had en- 
trusted me with a secret of this kind, I would not have 
divulged it to relation, or friend, or any mortal being, un- 
der any circumstances whatsoever. You do not know the 
trouble into which you have bronght me." It is not easy 
to see why Locke should have felt so disquieted at the 
prospect of his authorship being discovered, but it may 
be that he hoped to bring about some extension of the 
limits of the Toleration Act which had been passed in 
the preceding year, and that he feared that his hands 
might be tied by the discovery that he entertained what, 
at that time, would be regarded as such extreme views; 
or it may have been simply that he was afraid, if his au- 
thorship were once acknowledged, of being dragged into 
a loog and irksome controversy with the bigots of the 
various ecclesiastical parties which were then endeavour- 
ing to maintain or recover their ascendancv, 



CHAPTER V. 

LIFE AT OATES. FRIENDSHIPS. FURTHER PUBLICATIONS. 

Shortly after Locke returned to England, he settled down 
in lodgings in the neighbourhood of what is now called 
Cannon Eow, Westminster. But the fogs and smoke of 
London then, as now, were not favourable to persons of 
delicate health, and he seems to have been glad of any 
opportunity of breathing the country air. Amongst his 
places of resort were Parson's Green, the suburban resi- 
dence of Lord Mordaunt, now Earl of Monmouth, and 
Oates, a manor-house, in the parish of High Laver, in 
Essex, the seat of Sir Francis and Lady Masham, situated 
in a pleasant pastoral country, about twenty miles from 
London. Lady Masham had become known to him as 
Damaris Cud worth, before his retreat to Holland, and it is 
plain that from the first she had excited his admiration 
and esteem. She was the daughter of Dr. Ralph Cud- 
worth, Master of Christ's College, Cambridge, author of 
The True Intellectual System of the Universe, and of a 
posthumous work, still better known, A Treatise concerning 
Eternal and Immutable Morality, The close connexion 
which, in the latter years of his life, subsisted between 
Locke, the foremost name amongst the empirical philoso- 
phers of modern times, and the daughter of Cudworth, 
the most uncompromising of the a 'priori moralists and 
philosophers of the seventeenth century, may be regarded 



chap, v.] LIFE AT OATES. 63 

as one of the ironies of literary history. Damaris Cud- 
worth, inheriting her fathers tastes, took great interest in 
learning of all kinds, and specially in philosophy and 
theology. There was one point of community between 
her father and Locke besides their common pursuits, 
namely, the wide and philosophical view which they both 
took of theological controversies. Cudvvorth belonged to 
the small but learned and refined group of Cambridge 
Platonists or Latitudinarians, as they were called, which 
also numbered Henry More, John Smith, Culverwell, and 
Whichcote. Liberal and tolerant Churchmanship in those 
days, when it was so rare, was probably a much closer 
bond of union than it is now, and the associations which 
she had formed with her father's liberal, philosophical, and 
devout spirit must have helped to endear Locke to the 
daughter of Dr. Cudworth. During Locke's absence from 
England, Damaris Cudworth had married, as his second 
wife, Sir Francis Masham, an amiable and hospitable coun- 
try gentleman, who seems to have occupied a prominent 
position in his county. With them lived Mrs. Cudworth, 
the widow of Dr. Cudworth, one little son, Francis, and a 
daughter by the former marriage, Esther, who was about 
fourteen when Locke commenced his visits to the family. 
From the first he seems to have had some idea of settling 
down at Oates, " making trial of the air of the place," 
than which, as Lady Masham tells us, " he thought none 
would be more suitable to him." After a very scwiv 
illness in the autumn of 1690, he spent several months 
with the Mashams, and appears then to have formed a 
more definite plan of making Oates his home. But, 
though his hospitable friends gave him every assurance of 
a constant welcome, he would only consent t<> regard it as 
a permanent residence on his own terms, which were that 



64 LOCKE. [chap. 

he should pay his share of the household expenses. With 
true kindness and courtesy, Sir Francis and Lady Masham, 
at last, in the spring of 1691, agreed to this arrangement, 
and " Mr. Locke then," says Lady Masham, " believed him- 
self at home with us, and resolved, if it pleased God, here 
to end his days — as he did." Devoted and sympathetic 
friends, a pleasant residence, freedom from domestic or 
pecuniary cares, and the pure fresh air of the country 
seem to have afforded him all the enjoyment and leisure 
which we could have wished for him. After having had 
more than his share of the storms of life, he had at last 
found a quiet and pleasant haven wherein to enjoy the 
calm and sunshine of his declining years. Occasionally, 
and especially during the summer, he visited London, 
where, at first, he retained his old chambers at West- 
minster, moving afterwards to Lincoln's Inn Fields. -But 
Oates was now his home, and it continued to be so to the 
end of his life. 

Locke was always an attached friend, and we have seen 
already how many warm friendships he had formed in 
youth and middle age. At the present time, besides 
Limborch, Le Clerc, Lord Monmouth, and the Mashams, 
we may mention among his more intimate friends Lord 
Pembroke, the young Lord Ashley, Somers, Boyle, and 
Newton. Lord Pembroke (to whom the Essaij is dedi- 
cated in what we should now regard as a tone of over- 
wrought compliment) opened his town house for weekly 
meetings in which, instead of political and personal gossip, 
things of the mind were discussed. These conversations, 
" undisturbed by such as could not bear a part in the best 
entertainment of rational minds, free discourse concerning 
useful truths," were a source of great enjoyment to Locke 
during his London residence. It was through his intro- 



v.] FRIENDSHIPS. 65 

duction that Lord Pembroke, when sent on a special mis- 
sion to the Hague, made the acquaintance, which after- 
wards ripened into friendship, of Limborch and Le Gere. 

The correspondence between Locke and Limborch, while 
Lord Pembroke was in Holland, reveals to us the curious 
fact that there was no organized carrying trade between 
England and Holland at that time. On returning, the 
Earl, or his Secretary, was commissioned to bring back a 
pound of tea and copies of the Acta Eruditorum. The 
tea must be had at any price. " I want the best tea," 
Locke writes to Limborch, "even if it costs forty florins a 
pound ; only you must be quick, or we shall lose this op- 
portunity, and I doubt whether we shall have another." 
The price that he was ready to pay for a pound of tea 
would be about 91. at the present value of money. But 
tea at that time was regarded rather as a medicine than a 
beverage. 

Young Lord Ashley, it will be recollected, had, like his 
father, been under the charge of Locke when a child. 
After being at school for some years at Winchester, and 
spending some time in travelling on the Continent, he was 
now again in London, living in his father's house at Chel- 
sea. It is plain that the young philosopher saw a good 
deal of his " foster-father," as he called him, and they must 
often have discussed together the questions which were so 
interesting to them both. Ashley, moreover, who was al- 
ready beginning to solve the problems of philosophy in 
his own way, addressed a number of letters to Locke, free- 
ly, but courteously and good-humouredlv, criticising his 
master's views. 

Sir John Somers, now Solicitor-General, and successive- 
ly Attorney-General, Lord Keeper of the Great Seal, and 
Lord Chancellor, with the title of Lord Somers, had been 
4 



66 LOCKE. [chap. 

known to Locke before his retirement to Holland. They 
were both of them attached to the Shaftesbury connexion, 
and hence, though Somers was nearly twenty years the 
junior, they had probably already seen a good deal of each 
other when William ascended the throne. On Locke's 
return to England, he found Somers a member of the Con- 
vention Parliament. The younger man, both when he was 
a rising barrister and a successful minister, seems frequent- 
ly to have consulted the elder one, and Locke's principles 
of government, finance, and toleration must often have 
exerted a considerable influence both on his speeches and 
his measures. Nor had Locke any reason to be ashamed 
of his teaching. " Lord Somers," says Horace Walpole, 
" was one of those divine men who, like a chapel in a 
palace, remain unprofaned, while all the rest is tyranny, 
corruption, and folly." It was, perhaps, through Somers 
that Locke made the acquaintance of another great and 
wise statesman, Charles Montague, subsequently Lord Hali- 
fax, with whom, at least during the later years of his life, 
he had much political connexion, and by whom he was 
frequently called into counsel. 

The acquaintance between Locke and Newton, of whom 
Newton was the junior by more than ten years, most prob- 
ably began before Locke's departure to Holland. Both 
had then for some time been members of the Royal So- 
ciety, and both were friends of Boyle. The first positive 
evidence, however, that we have of their relations is afford- 
ed by a paper, entitled " A Demonstration that the Planets, 
by their gravity towards the Sun, may move in Eclipses," 
and endorsed in Locke's handwriting, " Mr. Newton, March, 
1689." In the summer or autumn of the same year, prob- 
ably, was written the epistle to the reader prefixed to the 
Essay. In that occurs the following passage, expressing 



v.] FRIENDSHIPS. 67 

no doubt Locke's genuine opinion of the great writers 
whom he names : — " The Commonwealth of learning is 
not at this time without master-builders, whose mighty 
designs in advancing the sciences will leave lasting monu- 
ments to the admiration of posterity; but every one must 
not hope to be a Boyle or a Sydenham, and in an age that 
produces such masters as the great Huygenius and the in- 
comparable Mr. Newton, with some other of that strain, 
'tis ambition enough to be employed as an under-labourer 
in clearing ground a little, and removing some of the rub- 
bish that lies in the way to knowledge." Locke interested 
himself long and warmly in attempting to obtain for New- 
ton some lucrative appointment in London. Newton's 
letters occasionally betray querulousness, but there can be 
no reason to suppose that Locke at all flagged in his ef- 
forts, and ultimately, with the assistance of Lord Mon- 
mouth, Lord Halifax, and others, they proved successful. 
Newton was, in course of time, appointed Warden, and 
then Master of the Mint. In January, 1690-91, the phi- 
losopher and the mathematician met at Gates. Their 
conversation there probably turned chiefly on theological 
topics, as was the case with most of their correspondence 
afterwards. Newton was greatly interested not only in 
theological speculation, but in the interpretation of proph- 
ecy and Biblical criticism, on both of which subjects works 
by him are extant. In 1690 he wrote a manuscript letter 
to Locke, entitled " An Historical Account of Two Notable 
Corruptions of Scripture in a Letter to a Friend," the texts 
criticised being 1 John v. 7, and 1 Timothy iii. 16. The 
corruption of the former of these texts is now almost uni- 
versally, and that of the latter very generally, acknowl- 
edged ; but so jealous of orthodoxy, in respect of anything 
which seemed to affect the doctrine o( the Trinity, was 



68 LOCKE. [chap. 

public opinion at that time, that Newton did no tdare to 
publish the pamphlet. Locke, who was meditating a visit 
to Holland, was, by Newton's wish, to have taken it over 
with him, and to have had it translated into French, 
and published anonymously. But the intended visit fell 
through, and Locke sent the manuscript over to Le Clerc. 
So timid, however, was Newton, that he now tried to re- 
call it. " Let me entreat you," he writes to Locke, " to 
stop the translation and impression of the papers as soon 
as you can, for I desire to suppress them." Le Clerc 
thought more nobly and more justly that " one ought to 
risk a little in order to be of service to those honest folk 
who err only through ignorance, and who, if they get a 
chance, would gladly be disabused of their false notions." 
The letter was not published till after its ajuthor's death, 
and at first it appeared only in an imperfect form. In 
Bishop Horsley's edition of Newton it is printed com- 
plete. Newton's unpublished writings leave no doubt 
that he did not accept the orthodox doctrine of the Trin- 
ity, and it may have been his consciousness of this fact 
which made him so afraid of being known to be the author 
of what was merely a critical exercitation. But we must 
recollect that at this time Biblical criticism was unfamiliar 
to the majority of divines, and that to question the au- 
thenticity of a text was generally regarded as identical with 
doubtiug the doctrine which it was supposed to illustrate. 
One of the other subjects on which Locke and Newton 
corresponded was a parcel of red earth which had been 
left by Boyle, who died on Dec. 30, 1691, to Locke and 
his other literary executors, with directions for turning it 
into gold. Locke scenes to have had some faith in the 
alchemistic process, but it is plain that Newton had none. 
He was satisfied that " mercury, by this recipe, might be 



v.] FRIENDSHIPS. 69 

brought to change its colours and properties, but not that 
gold might be multiplied thereby." Some workmen of 
whom he had heard as practising the recipe had been 
forced to other means of living, a proof that the multipli- 
cation of gold did not succeed as a profession. Occasion- 
ally, owing to Newton's nervous and irritable temper, which 
at one time threatened to settle down into a fixed melan- 
choly, there seems to have been some misunderstanding 
of Locke on his part, but it is satisfactory to know that 
the two greatest literary men of their age in England, if 
not in Europe, lived, almost without interruption, in friend- 
ly and even intimate relations with each other. 

The close intercourse between Boyle and Locke, which 
dated from their Oxford days, seems to have been kept 
up till the time of Boyle's death. Locke made a special 
journey to London to visit him on his death-bed, and was, 
as we have seen, left one of his literary executors. The 
editing of Boyle's General History of the Air had already 
been committed to Locke, and seems to have occupied 
much of his time during the year 1691. 

Of Locke's less-known friends, Dr. David Thomas must 
have died between 1687, when there is a letter from him 
to Locke, and 1700, when Locke speaks of having out- 
lived him. Sir James Tyrrell, another old college friend, 
usually spoken of in Locke's correspondence as Musidore, 
was in communication with him as late as April, 1704, 
the year of his death. He had, as already stated, been 
present at the " meeting of five or six friends " in Locke's 
chamber, which first suggested the composition of the 
Essay. 

Edward Clarke, of Chiplev, near Taunton, was another 
friend of old standing, lie was elected member for Taun- 
ton in King William's second parliament, and from that 



10 LOCKE. [chap. 

time forward resided much in London. This circum- 
stance probably deepened the intimacy between the two 
friends ; at all events, during the remainder of Locke's life 
they are constantly associated. Locke advised Clarke as 
to the education of his children, one of whom, Betty, a little 
girl now about ten years old, seems to have been regarded 
by him with peculiar affection; in his letters he constant- 
ly speaks of her as " Mrs. Locke " and his " wife." The 
playful banter with which Locke treated his child friends 
affords unmistakable evidence of the kindness and simplic- 
ity of his heart. 

William Molyneux, who for many years represented the 
University of Dublin in the Irish parliament, referred to 
in the second edition of the Essay as " that very ingenious 
and studious promoter of real knowledge, the worthy and 
learned Mr. Molyneux," u this thinking gentleman whom, 
though I have never had the happiness to see, I am proud 
to call my friend," first became acquainted with Locke in 
1692. In his Dioptrica JVova, published in that year, he 
had paid Locke a graceful, if not an exaggerated, compli- 
ment. " To none do we owe, for a greater advancement in 
this part of philosophy," he said, speaking of logic, " than 
to the incomparable Mr. Locke, who hath rectified more 
received mistakes, and delivered more profound truths, es- 
tablished on experience and observation, for the direction 
of man's mind in the prosecution of knowledge, which I 
think may be properly termed logic, than are to be met 
with in all the volumes of the ancients. He has clearly 
overthrown all those metaphysical whimsies which infected 
men's brains with a spice of madness, whereby they feign- 
ed a knowledge where they had none, by making a noise 
with sounds without clear and distinct significations." 
Locke was pleased with the compliment, and a letter ac- 



v.] FRIENDSHIPS. 71 

knowledging the receipt of Molyneux's book was the be- 
ginning of a long correspondence between them, which 
ended only with the early death of Molyneux, at the age 
of forty-two, in 1698. For nearly six years the friends, 
though in constant correspondence, had never seen each 
other, Molyneux residing in Dublin, and suffering, like 
Locke, from feeble health, which prevented him from 
crossing the Channel. But the feeling of affection seems 
soon to have become as intense, notwithstanding Aristo- 
tle's dictum that personal intercourse is essential to the 
continuance of friendship, as if they had lived together 
all their lives. In his second letter to Molyneux, dated 
Sept. 20, 1692, Locke says: — "You must expect to have 
me live with you hereafter, with all the liberty and assur- 
ance of a settled friendship. For meeting with but few 
men in the world whose acquaintance I find much reason 
to covet, I make more than ordinary haste into the famil- 
iarity of a rational inquirer after and lover of truth, when- 
ever I can light on any such. There are beauties of the 
mind as well as of the body, that take and prevail at first 
sight ; and, wherever I have met with this, I have readily 
surrendered myself, and have never yet been deceived in 
my expectation." Molyneux had thought of coming over 
to England on a visit to Locke in the summer of 1694. 
Locke, in a letter written in the following spring, after 
deprecating the risks to which his journey might expose 
him adds: — " And yet, if I may confess my secret thoughts, 
there is not anything which I would not give that some 
other unavoidable occasion would draw you into England. 
A rational, free-minded man, tied to nothing but truth, is 
so rare a thing that I almost worship such a friend; but, 
when friendship is joined to it, and these arc brought into 
a free conversation, where they meet and can be together, 



12 LOCKE. [chap. 

what is there can have equal charms? I cannot but ex- 
ceedingly wish for that happy day when I may see a man 
I have so often longed to have in my embraces. . . . You 
cannot think how often I regret the distance that is be- 
tween us; I envy Dublin for what I every day want in 
London." In a subsequent letter, written in 1695, he 
writes: — "I cannot complain that I have not my share of 
friends of all ranks, and such whose interest, assistance, 
affection, and opinions too, in fit cases, I can rely on. But 
methinks, for all this, there is one place vacant that I know 
nobody would so well fill as yourself ; I want one near me 
to talk freely with " de quolibet ente," to propose to the 
extravagancies that rise in my mind ; one with whom I 
would debate several doubts and questions to see what 
was in them." Thomas Molyneux, the brother of Wil- 
liam, a physician practising in Dublin, had met Locke dur- 
ing his stay in Holland. They shared a common admira- 
tion for Sydenham, and the correspondence with William 
Molyneux revived their friendship, though it never attain- 
ed to nearly the same proportions as that between Locke 
and the other brother. A passage on what may be called 
the Logic of Medicine, in one of Locke's letters to Thomas 
Molyneux, is worth quoting : — " What we know T of the 
works of nature, especially in the constitution of health 
and the operations of our own bodies, is only by the sen- 
sible effects, but not by any certainty we can have of the 
tools she uses or the ways she walks by. So that there 
is nothing left for a physician to do but to observe well, 
and so, by analogy, argue to like cases, and thence make 
to himself rules of practice." 

Nov. 7, 1691, is the date of the dedication of the Tract 
entitled "Some considerations on the Lowering of Inter- 



T.] FURTHER PUBLICATIONS. IS 

est and Raising the Value of Money in a letter sent to a 
Member of Parliament, 1691." This letter was published 
anonymously in the following year. The member of Par- 
liament was undoubtedly Sir John Somers, who had "put" 
the author " upon looking out his old papers concerning 
the reducing of interest to 4 per cent, which had so long," 
nearly twenty years, " lain by, forgotten." The time to 
which Locke refers must be the year 1672, when the Ex- 
chequer was closed, that is to say, all payments to the pub- 
lic creditors suspended for a year, and the interest on the 
Bankers' advances reduced to six per cent. This nefari- 
ous act of spoliation, which caused wide-spread ruin and 
distress, was devised while Shaftesbury was Chancellor of 
the Exchequer, but the main blame in the transaction 
probably attaches to Clifford. " The notions concerning 
coinage," which are embodied in the second division of 
the pamphlet, had been put into writing and apparently 
shown to Somers about twelve months before the date of 
the letter. On the occasion and contents of this pam- 
phlet, as well as of Locke's other tracts on Finance, I shall 
have an opportunity of speaking in subsequent chapters. 

Many of my readers will sympathize with Locke in his 
complaints of the waste of his time during this autumn. 
Writing to Limborch on Nov. 14, he says, "I know not 
how it is, but the pressure of other people's business has 
left me no time or leisure for my own affairs. Do not 
suppose that I mean public business. I have neither health, 
nor strength, nor knowledge enough to attend to that. 
And when I ask myself what has so hampered and oc- 
cupied me during the last three months, it seems as if a 
sort of spell had been thrown on me, so that I have got 
entangled first in one business and then in another, with- 
out being able to avoid it, or, in fact, to foresee what was 
F 4* 



74 LOCKE. [chap. 

coming." Locke was pre-eminently a good-natured man, 
and, like many other men before and since, he had to pay 
the penalty of good-nature by doing a vast amount of oth- 
er people's business, often probably with scant acknowledg- 
ment. One of the occupations in which he was engaged 
may have been doctoring the household at Oates and ad- 
vising medically for his friends at a distance ; but in busi- 
ness of this kind, though he may have grudged the time 
it consumed, he seems always to have taken special de 

light. 

In the summer of 1692 he spent a considerable time 
in London. His main business there seems to have been 
to see the Third Letter on Toleration through the press. 
But he was now, as ever, ready to do work for his friends. 
Thus he obtained for Limborch the permission to dedicate 
the book which he had so long been preparing, the His- 
,to\ria Inquisitionis, to Tillotson, then Archbishop of Can- 
terbury. Limborch evidently set great store on this privi- 
lege. Of Tillotson, Locke seems to have entertained a 
very high opinion; which, indeed, was thoroughly well 
deserved. " In proportion to his renown and worth is his 
modesty." Tillotson was not one of those liberal Church- 
men whom promotion makes timid, or cold to their for- 
mer friends. He was maligned by an unforgiving and un- 
scrupulous faction, more, perhaps, than any other man of 
that age, but he always retained the courage of his opin- 
ions. 

Locke's health seems to have suffered much during the 
winter of 1692-93. But he still occupied himself with 
literary work. While in Holland, he had corresponded 
frequently with Clarke on the education of his children. 
Yielding to the solicitation of many of his friends, es- 
pecially William Molyneux, he now reduced the letters 



v.] FURTHER PUBLICATIONS. 75 

to the form of a treatise, which was published in July, 
1693, under the title Some Thoughts Concerning Edu- 
cation. The dedication to Clarke bears date in the previ- 
ous March, and is signed by Locke, though his name does 
not appear on the title-page. The most serious work, 
however, in which he was now engaged, was the prepara- 
tion of a second edition of the Essay. The first edition 
seems to have been exhausted in the autumn of 1692. On 
the alterations and additions introduced into the second 
edition, there is an interesting correspondence with Moly- 
neux, ranging from Sept. 20, 1692, to May 26, 1694, when 
the new edition, notwithstanding the " slowness of the 
press," was " printed and bound, and ready to be sent " to 
Locke's Dublin correspondent. Besides suggestions in de- 
tail, such as those touching the questions of liberty and per- 
sonal identity. Molyneux urged Locke to undertake a sepa- 
rate work on Ethics, a suggestion which for a time he en- 
tertained favourably, but which, owing partly, perhaps, to 
his idea that the principles and rules of morality ought 
to be presented in a demonstrative form, was never car- 
ried out. Though he does not seem to have doubted 
that " morality might be demonstrably made out," yet 
whether he was able so to make it out was another ques- 
tion. "Every one could not have demonstrated what 
Mr. Newton's book hath shown to be demonstrable." He 
was, however, ready to employ the first leisure he could 
find that way. But the treatise never proceeded beyond 
a few rough notes. Another reason assigned, at a later 
period, for not more seriously setting about this task was 
that " the Gospel contains so perfect a body of ethics, 
that reason may be excused for that inquiry, since she 
may find man's duty clearer and easier in revelation than 
in herself." This argument shows at once the sincerity 



76 LOCKE. [chap. 

of Locke's religious convictions, and the inadequate con- 
ception he had formed to himself of the grounds and nat- 
ure of Moral Philosophy. Another suggestion made by 
Molyneux was that, besides a second edition of the Essay, 
Locke should bring out, in accordance with the main lines 
of his philosophy, another work forming a complete com- 
pendium of logic and metaphysics for the use of Univer- 
sity Students. No one can regret that the author of the 
Essay did not adopt this advice. Apropos of this sug- 
gestion, Molyneux tells Locke that Dr. Ashe, then Provost 
of Trinity College, Dublin, " was so wonderfully pleased 
and satisfied with the work, that he has ordered it to be 
read by the bachelors in the college, and strictly examines 
them in their progress therein." From that time onwards 
the Essay seems to have held its ground as a class-book 
at Dublin. The reception which it met with at first from 
the authorities of Locke's own University, as we shall see 
presently, was widely different. In May, 1694, the second 
edition was on sale, and was quickly exhausted. The third 
edition, which is simply a reprint of the second, appeared 
in the following year. One more edition, the fourth, 
dated 1700, but issued in the autumn of 1699, appeared 
during Locke's lifetime. In it there are important alter- 
ations and additions, including two new chapters — that on 
Enthusiasm, and the very important one at the end of the 
second book, on the Association of Ideas. A Latin trans- 
lation of the Essay by Richard Burridge, an Irish Cler- 
gyman, was published at London, in 1701 ; and a French 
translation by Pierre Coste, who was a friend of Le Clerc, 
and had been acting for some time as tutor to young 
Frank Masham at Amsterdam, in 1700. John Wynne, Fel- 
low of Jesus College, Oxford, and subsequently Bishop of 
St. Asaph, published an abridgment for the use of Univer- 



v.] FURTHER PUBLICATIONS. 11 

sity Students, in 1696. Wynne had a large number of 
pupils, and the compendium of Locke's philosophy ap- 
pears to have obtained rapid circulation among the young- 
er students in Oxford, only, however, as we shall soon see, 
to encounter the opposition of the authorities. 

It is notable that all the important alterations and addi- 
tions made in the second edition of the Essay were print- 
ed on separate slips, and issued, without charge, to those 
who possessed the first. Sir James Tyrrell's copy of the 
first edition, with these slips pasted in, is in the British 
Museum ; and that of William Molyneux in the Bodleian. 
In sending to Molyneux the second edition, Locke had 
also forwarded the slips to be pasted in the first, which 
would " help to make the book useful to any young man ;" 
but whether Molyneux gave the copy now in the Bodleian 
to " any young man," and, if so, who the fortunate young 
man was, we do not learn. 

The first writer who had taken up his pen against 
Locke was John Norris, the amiable and celebrated Yicar 
of Bemerton, a religious and philosophical mystic, whose 
works are even still in repute. Norris was a disciple of 
Malebranche, and his attack seems to have had the effect 
of leading Locke to make a careful study of the theories 
of the French philosopher. The result was two tractates 
— one entitled Remarks u])on some of Mr. Noma's Books ; 
the other, An Examination of Pere Malebranche* s Opinion 
of seeing all things in God. The latter is much the more 
considerable production of the two, and is mainly remark- 
able as showing that Locke saw clearly that the conclu- 
sions, subsequently drawn by Berkeley, must follow from 
Malebranche's premises. Neither of these tract- was pub- 
lished till after Locke's death. The reasons assigned by 
him for not publishing his criticisms of Malebranche are 



78 LOCKE. [chap. 

characteristic : " I love not controversies, and have a per- 
sonal kindness for the author." 

Locke's literary activity during the years 1689-95 ap- 
pears excessive ; but we must recollect that he had already 
accumulated a vast amount of material, and that, during 
the latter part of that time at least, he must have enjoyed 
considerable leisure in his country retirement. In the ear- 
ly months of 1695 he was mainly occupied with a new 
subject — the Essay on the Reasonableness of Christianity 
as delivered in the Scriptures. Though this work was 
designed to establish the supernatural character of the 
Christian revelation, and its importance to mankind, it by 
no means satisfied the canons of a strict orthodoxy. Some 
of the more mysterious and less intelligible doctrines of 
the Christian Church, if not denied, were at least repre- 
sented as unessential to saving faith. Hence it at once 
provoked a bitter controversy. " The buz, the flutter, and 
noise which was made, and the reports which were raised," 
says its author, " would have persuaded the world that it 
subverted all morality, and was designed against the Chris- 
tian religion. I must confess, discussions of this kind, 
which I met with, spread up and down, at first amazed 
me ; knowing the sincerity of those thoughts which per- 
suaded me to publish it, not without some hope of doing 
some service to decaying piety and mistaken and slander- 
ed Christianity." The first assailant was John Edwards, a 
former Fellow of St. John's College, Cambridge, who in a 
violent pamphlet, entitled Thoughts concerning the Causes 
and Occasions of A theism, included the Reasonableness of 
Christianity in his attack, and insinuated that Locke was 
its author by affecting to disbelieve it. The book was 
described as "all over Socinianized," and a Socinian, if 
not an atheist, is, according to Edwards, " one that favours 



v.] FURTHER PUBLICATIONS. 79 

the cause of atheism. " That there was much similarity 
between the apparent opinions of Locke and the doctrines 
of Faustus Socinus himself, though not of Socinus's more 
extreme followers, who were also popularly called Socin- 
ians, admits of no doubt. But the charge of favouring 
atheism can only have been brought against a man who 
regarded the existence of God as u the most obvious truth 
that reason discovers,' 7 and who appears never to have 
questioned the reality of supernatural intervention, from 
time to time, in the world's history, because it happened 
to be the roughest stone that could be found in the con- 
troversial wallet. Locke replied to Edwards with pardon- 
able asperity, in a tract entitled A Vindication of the 
Reasonableness of Christianity. Edwards, of course, soon 
replied to the reply, and attacked Locke more violently 
than ever in his Socinianism Unmasked. No rejoinder 
followed, but the adversary was not to be let off on such 
easy terms. Another shot was fired, and The Socinian 
Creed, as venomous and more successful than the Socin- 
ianism Unmasked, provoked A Second Vindication. This 
lengthy pamphlet, far more elaborate than the first, must 
have occupied much of Locke's time. It did not appear 
till the spring of 1697. Edwards returned to the charge; 
but, fortunately, Locke had the wisdom and courage to 
refrain from carrying on the fight. Bitter as the feeling 
against Locke must have been in many clerical circles at 
this time, there were not wanting, even amongst the 
clergy, those who sympathized with his views. Mr. Bolde, 
a Dorsetshire clergyman, came forward to defend him 
against Edwards. And Molyneux, writing on the 26th 
of September, 1696, says, "As to the Reasonableness of 
Christianity, I do not find but it is very well approved 
of here amongst candid, unprejudiced men, that dare 



80 LOCKE. [chap. 

speak their thoughts. I'll tell you what a very learned 
and ingenious prelate said to me on that occasion. I ask- 
ed him whether he had read that book, and how he liked 
it. He told me very well; and that, if my friend Mr. 
Locke writ it, it was the best book he ever laboured at ; 
'but,' says he, ' if I should be known to think so, I should 
have my lawns torn from my shoulders.' But he knew 
my opinion aforehand, and was, therefore, the freer to 
commit his secret thoughts in that matter to me." We 
may not be disposed to think highly of the " very learned 
and ingenious prelate ;" but the story shows, as indeed 
we know from other sources, to what a volume of opin- 
ion, both lay and clerical, on the expediency of presenting 
Christianity in a more "reasonable" and less mysterious 
and dogmatic form, Locke's treatise had given expression. 
Men were anxious to retain their beliefs in the super- 
natural order of events, but they were equally anxious to 
harmonize them with what they regarded as the necessi- 
ties of reason. The current of "Rationalism" had set in. 
It is satisfactory to know that, amidst all these con- 
troversial worries, which must have been most distasteful 
to a man of his habits and temper, Locke enjoyed the 
solace of pleasant companionship and domestic serenity. 
He was thoroughly at home at Oates, and Lord Mon- 
mouth and his other friends in and near town seem al- 
ways to have been ready to accord him a hearty welcome, 
whenever he cared to pay them a visit. His little " wife," 
Betty Clarke, and her brother used occasionally to come 
on visits to him at the Mashams, and he seems to have 
taken great delight in the society of Esther Masham, who 
was now rapidly growing up to womanhood. " In rail- 
lery," wrote this lady many years afterwards, " he used 
to call me his Laudabridis, and I called him my John." 






v.] FURTHER PUBLICATIONS. 81 

The winters of 1694-95 and 1695-96 were unusually 
long and severe, and in both of them Locke appears to 
have been under apprehensions that his chronic illness 
might terminate in death. 

It may here be noticed that in the summer of 1694 
Locke became one of the original proprietors of the Bank 
of England, which, having been projected by a merchant 
named William Paterson, had been established by Act of 
Parliament in April of that year, and invested with cer- 
tain trading privileges, on condition that it should lend 
its capital to the Government at eight per cent, interest. 
The plan had encountered great opposition, especially 
among the landed gentry, and had only been carried 
through the strenuous exertions of Montague and the 
Whig party. Locke subscribed 500/., a considerable sum 
in those days. 



CHAPTER VI. 

POLITICAL AFFAIRS. PUBLIC OCCUPATIONS. RELATIONS 

WITH THE KING. 

Notwithstanding his retirement to Oates, and his inces- 
sant literary activity, Locke never lost his interest in pol- 
itics, and, as the friend and admirer of men like Mon- 
mouth, Somers, and Clarke, he must always have exercised 
a considerable influence on the policy of the Whig party. 
In the spring of 1695 he seems to have taken a primary 
share in determining a measure which for a time divided 
the Houses of Lords and Commons, and which must have 
enlisted his warmest sympathies. This was the repeal of 
the Licensing Act. The English Press had never been 
wholly free, and the Act of Charles II., which was still in 
force, was peculiarly stringent. Occasion had been taken 
by the Commons, when it was proposed, in the session of 
1694-95, to renew certain temporary statutes, to strike 
out this particular statute from the list. The Lords dis- 
sented, and re-inserted it. The Commons refused to ac- 
cept the amendment. A conference of both Houses took 
place, Clarke of Chipley being the leading manager on 
the part of the Commons, and the result was that the 
Lords waived their objections. The paper of reasons 
tendered by the Commons' managers on this occasion is 
said, by a writer in the Craftsman for Nov. 20, 1731, to 



chap, vi.] POLITICAL AFFAIRS. 83 

have been drawn up by Locke. As Clarke was one of 
his most intimate friends, and as the Reasons correspond 
pretty closely with a paper of criticisms on the Act writ- 
ten by Locke, this statement is probably true, so far at 
least as concerns their substance. The arguments em- 
ployed are mainly practical, consisting of objections in 
detail, and pointing out inconveniences, financial and oth- 
erwise, which resulted from the operation of the Act. But 
these arguments, " suited to the capacity of the parlia- 
mentary majority," did, as Macaulay has remarked, what 
Milton's Areopagitica had failed to do, and a vote, " of 
which the history can be but imperfectly traced in the 
Journals of the House, has done more for liberty and 
for civilization than the Great Charter or the Bill of 
Rights.'' Locke's paper of criticisms, which is published 
in extenso in Lord Kings Life, asks very pertinently " why 
a man should not have liberty to print whatever he would 
speak, and be answerable for the one, just as he is for the 
other, if he transgresses the law in either." He then of- 
fers a suggestion, to take the place of the licensing pro- 
visions : — "Let the printer or bookseller be answerable for 
whatever is against law in the book, as if he were the au- 
thor, unless he can produce the person he had it from, 
which is all the restraint ought to be upon printing." It 
appears from this paper that the monopoly of the Station- 
ers' Company had become so oppressive that books print- 
ed in London could be bought cheaper at Amsterdam than 
in St. Paul's Church Yard. Except for the few monopo- 
lists, the book-trade had been ruined in England. But 
then, he reflects, " our ecclesiastical laws seldom favour 
trade, and he that reads this Act with attention will find 
it upse" (that is, highly) " ecclesiastical." 

This question had hardly been settled before Locke had 



84 LOCKE. [chap. 

another opportunity of influencing legislation on a subject 
which absorbed much of his interest, and on which he had 
already employed his pen. Probably at no time in the 
history of our country has the condition of the coinage 
become so burning a question, or caused such wide-spread 
distress, as in the years immediately succeeding the Revo- 
lution. To understand the monetary difficulties occasion- 
ed by clipping the coin, it must be remembered that, at the 
time of which I am speaking, two kinds of silver money 
(if we neglect the imperfectly milled money which was 
executed between 1561 and 1663) were in circulation, 
hammered money with unmarked rims, and what was 
called milled money, from being made in a coining-mill, 
with a legend on the rim of the larger and graining on 
the rim of the smaller pieces. The latter kind of coins, 
too, had the additional advantage of being almost perfectly 
circular, while the shape of the former was almost always 
more or less irregular. The hammered money, it is plain, 
could be easily clipped or pared, whereas the milling was 
an absolute protection against this mode of fraud. Though 
milling, in much its present form, had been introduced into 
our mint in the year 1663, and then became the exclusive 
mode of coining, the old hammered money still continued 
to be legal tender; and, as the milled money w r as always 
worth its weight in silver, and the hammered money was 
generally current at something much above its intrinsic 
worth, the milled money was naturally melted down or 
exported abroad, leaving the hammered money in almost 
exclusive possession of the field. The milled money dis- 
appeared almost as fast as it was coined, and the hammer- 
ed money was clipped and pared more and more, till it 
was often not worth half or even a third of the sum for 
which it passed. At Oxford, indeed, a hundred pounds' 



vl] POLITICAL AFFAIRS. 85 

worth of the current silver money, which ought to have 
weighed four hundred ounces, was found to weigh only a 
hundred and sixteen. Every month the state of things 
was becoming worse and worse. The cost of commodities 
was constantly rising, and every payment of any amount 
involved endless altercations. In a bargain not only had 
the price of the article to be settled, but also the value of 
the money in which it was to be paid. A guinea, which 
at one place counted for only twenty-two shillings, would 
at another fetch thirty, and might have brought far more, 
had not the Government fixed that sum as the maximum 
at which it would be taken in the payment of taxes. 
Taus, all commercial transactions had become disarranged ; 
no one knew what he was really worth, or what any com- 
modity might cost him a few months hence. Macaulay, 
who has given a most graphic description of the financial 
condition of the country at this time, hardly exaggerates 
when he says, " It may be doubted whether all the mis- 
ery which had been inflicted on the English nation in a 
quarter of a century by bad kings, bad ministers, bad par- 
liaments, and bad judges, was equal to the misery caused 
in a single year by bad crowns and bad shillings." Al- 
most from the moment of his return to England, Locke 
had felt the gravest anxiety on this subject " When at 
my lodgings in London," says Lady Masham, speaking of 
the time immediately succeeding the Revolution, " the com- 
pany there, finding him often afflicted about a matter 
which nobody else took any notice of, have rallied him 
upon this uneasiness as being a visionary trouble, he has 
more than once replied, ' We might laugh at it, but it 
would not be long before we should want money to send 
our servants to market with for bread and meat, 1 which 
was so true, five or six years after, that there was not a 



86 LOCKE. [chap. 

family in England who did not find this a difficulty." The 
letter on " Some Considerations of the Consequences of 
Lowering of Interest and Raising the Value of Money," 
the latter part of which dealt with this question, is dated 
as early as Nov. 7, 1691, and had been, in the main, as 
he tells us, put into writing about twelve months before. 
Here he not only points out the intolerable character of 
the grievances under which the nation was labouring, but 
also protests most emphatically against one of the pro- 
posed methods of remedying them, namely, ■" raising the 
value of money," as it was called ; that is, depreciating the 
intrinsic value of the money coined, or raising the denom- 
ination, so, for instance, as to put into a crown-piece or a 
shilling, when coined, less than the customary amount of 
silver. To the consideration of this scheme, which at one 
time found much favour, we shall soon see that he had oc- 
casion to recur. Universal as were the complaints about 
the existing state of things, no active measures, if we ex- 
cept wholesale and frequent hangings for " clipping the 
coin," and increased measures of vigilance for the purpose 
of detecting the delinquents, were taken for stopping the 
evil, until the year 1695. Under the malign ascendancy 
of Danby, the Government had other views and objects 
than to ameliorate the condition of the people. But, in the 
years 1694 and 1695, other and more enlightened states- 
men were gradually winning their way into the royal coun- 
cils, or beginning to occupy a more important position 
in them. For at this period, we must recollect, the high 
officers of state were not all, as now, necessarily of one uni- 
form political pattern. In April, 1694, immediately after 
the establishment of the Bank of England, Charles Mon- 
tague, afterwards Lord Halifax, one of the greatest of Eng- 
lish financiers, had been made Chancellor of the Exchequer. 



vi.] POLITICAL AFFAIRS. 87 

And, on occasion of the king's departure for the Conti- 
nent in May, 1695, two of Locke's most intimate friends 
— Lord Keeper Somers and the Earl of Pembroke — were 
nominated among the seven Lords Justices, who were to 
govern the kingdom during William's absence. To dis- 
cerning and judicious statesmen like Somers and Montague 
it must have been quite apparent that the penal laws for 
protecting the coinage were altogether inadequate to the 
purpose. The gains to be made were so large and so 
easily obtained, that men were ready to run the risk of the 
punishment. And, moreover, even if the crime were de- 
tected, the punishment was by no meatus certain or unat- 
tended with sympathy. Great as were the suffering and 
inconveniences inflicted on the people by these practices, 
the punishment of death appeared to many to be in excess 
of the offence. Juries were often unwilling to convict, 
and the disgrace incurred by the criminal was very differ- 
ent from that which attended the murderer or the ordinary 
thief. That wise financial legislation, and not the more 
stringent execution of the penal laws, was the true and 
only effectual mode of eradicating the disease, was at 
length recognized by the Government, and the new Lords 
Justices soon set about to devise the remedy. To Locke, 
who was well known to have been the author of the pam- 
phlet which appeared on the subject in 1692, they natural- 
ly turned for advice. In the early part of October, while 
the king was on his way back from his successful campaign 
in the Netherlands, he was summoned up from Gates to 
confer with them. Writing to Molyneux the next month, 
and informing him of the fact, he adds, with characteristic 
modesty: "This is too publicly known here to make the 
mentioning of it to you appear vanity in me." Notwith 
standing the subordinate part which Locke here seems to 



88 LOCKE. [chap. 

assign to himself, there can be no doubt that his share in 
the measures of the Government, as ultimately matured, 
was a principal, if not the principal, one. That legislative 
measures would now be taken, there was no longer any 
question. But the danger of which Locke was chiefly 
afraid was the raising the denomination of the coin, or, 
in other words, the legalized depreciation of the currency, 
a scheme against which he had formerly protested, and 
which w r as now officially recommended to the Government 
by one of their own subordinates, William Lowndes. 
Orders had been given to Lowndes, who, after many years 
of good service in a subordinate capacity, had recently 
been appointed Secretary to the Treasury, to collect statis- 
tics relating to the monetary condition of the country, 
and to report on the most practicable methods of re-coin- 
ing the current silver money. In executing the former 
part of his task, he left no doubt as to the necessity of 
speedily applying some remedy. The silver coins brought 
into the Exchequer during three months of 1695 ought to 
have weighed 221,418 ounces. Their actual weight was 
113,771 ounces, or barely over one-half. In consequence 
of the vitiating, diminishing, and counterfeiting of the 
current moneys, he says, "It is come to pass that great 
contentions do daily arise amongst the king's subjects 
in fairs, markets, shops, and other places throughout the 
kingdom, about the passing and refusing of the same, to 
the great disturbance of the public peace. Many bargains, 
doings, and dealings are totally prevented and laid aside, 
which lessens trade* in general." The necessity of setting 
the price of commodities according to the value of the 
money to be received, is, he considers, " one great cause 
of raising the price, not only of merchandise, but even 
oi edibles and other necessaries for the sustenance of the 



vi.] POLITICAL AFFAIRS. 89 

common people, to their great grievance." So far, his 
political economy was perfectly sound ; but when he comes 
to discuss the question of re-coinage, he advocates, with- 
out any misgiving, a scheme for the depreciation of the 
currency to the extent of one-fifth. A crown-piece was 
henceforth to count as 6s. 3d., and the nominal value of 
half-crowns, shillings, and sixpences was to be raised pro- 
portionately. Locke, with his clearer mind, saw, of course, 
that this would only be for the state to do systematically 
and by law the very same thing for which the clippers 
were being hanged. It would be to legalize the disar- 
rangement of all monetary transactions, and to deprive 
every creditor of one-fifth of his debts. Montague and 
Somers were as clear on this point as he was, and Somers 
at once urged him to reply. Locke had returned to Oates, 
in consequence of the sudden death of Mrs. Cudworth, on 
the 16th of November, and at once set about his answer. 

This tract, which formed a pamphlet of more than a 
hundred pages, was submitted to the Lords Justices, print- 
ed, and published before the end of December. It was 
entitled Further Considerations concerning Raising the 
Value of Money, and simplified and enforced the argu- 
ments contained in a previous pamphlet which Locke had 
also drawn up for the use of the Lords Justices earlier in 
the year, under the title, Some Observations on a Printed 
Paper, entitled, For Encouraging the Coining Silver money 
in England, and after for keeping it here. Moan while, 
Montague had, under the sanction of a committee of the 
whole House, introduced his resolutions into the House 
of Commons, and there can be little doubt that, in draw- 
ing up these, he and the Lords Justices had been assist- 
ed by Locke. Any way, the resolutions embodied in the 
main the opinions which Locke had been so instrumental 
G 5 



90 LOCKE. [chap. 

in impressing on those in authority. The old standard 
value of the silver pieces was to be retained both as to 
weight and fineness, the point for which he had fought so 
persistently. The clipped pieces were, after a certain day, 
only to be received in payment of taxes, or in loans to the 
Exchequer ; after a further day, they were to cease to be 
legal tender altogether. All the hammered money, as it 
came into the mint in payment of loans or taxes, was to 
be re-coined as milled money, and the loss to be borne by 
the Exchequer. When the resolution that the old stand- 
ard was to be retained was put to the House, it was chal- 
lenged, and an amendment moved by those who were of 
Lowndes' opinion that the word " both " be omitted. On 
a division, there were 225 for retaining the word, and 114 
against. The House thus, by a large majority, affirmed 
what all economists would now regard as an elementary 
principle of finance. A Bill embodying the resolution 
was soon passed, but, in consequence of difficulties with 
the Lords, had to be dropped. A fresh Bill was intro- 
duced on the 13th of January, substantially embodying 
the same provisions as the old Bill, and was hurried 
through its various stages so fast that it received the 
Royal Assent on the 21st of January, 1695-96. Up to 
the 4tb of May, 1696, the clipped money was to be re- 
ceived in payment of taxes, and up to the 24th of June, 
for loans or other payments into the Exchequer. But 
after the 10th of February ensuing, it was to cease to be 
legal tender in ordinary payments. Thus, in spite of much 
temporary inconvenience caused by the scarcity of money 
during the time of transition, the silver coinage of the 
country was, once for all, put upon a sound basis. Late 
as Locke's pamphlet appeared, it probably helped to facili- 
tate the passage of the Bill through the two Houses, as 



vi.] POLITICAL AFFAIRS. 91 

the reiterated statement of his opinions had undoubtedly 
contributed in very large measure to shape and confirm 
the action of the government. It may be mentioned that 
the loss to the Exchequer, estimated as 1,200,000/., was 
made up by the imposition of a house tax and window tax, 

I the former of which still continues, while the latter existed 
within the memory of many men now only of middle age. 
Great as is the debt which philosophy owes to Locke's 
Essay, constitutional theory to his treatises on govern- 
ment, the freedom of religious speculation to his Letters 
on Toleration, and the ways of " sweet reasonableness " 
to all these, and indeed to all his works, it would form a 
nice subject of discussion whether mankind at large has 
not been more benefited by the share which he took in 
practical reforms than by his literary productions. It 
would undoubtedly be too much to affirm that, without 
his initiative or assistance, the state of the coinage would 
never have been reformed, the monopoly of the Stationers' 
Company abolished, or the shackles of the Licensing Act 
struck off. But had it not been for his clearness of vi- 
sion, and the persistence of his philanthropic efforts, these 
measures might have been indefinitely retarded or clogged 
with provisos and compromises which might have robbed 
them of more than half their effects. A generation ago 
it was the fashion in many circles to speak contemptuous- 
ly of the writers and statesmen of William's reign, and 
even now but scant and grudging justice is often done to 
them. The admirers of mystical philosophy and romantic 
politics may, however, fairly be challenged to show that 
their heroes, whether in letters or action, have borne equal 
fruit with the vigorous understanding and plain, direct, 
practical common-sense of men like Halifax, Somers, and 
Locke. 



92 LOCKE. [chap. 

It has already been stated that soon after his return to 
England Locke was appointed a Commissioner of Appeals, 
a post which, though not entirely without duties, seems to 
have taken up but little of his time. One of his letters to 
Clarke shows the difficulty of forming a quorum, and per- 
haps illustrates the fact that when the duties of an office 
are slight, they are generally neglected altogether. But 
towards the end of the year 1695 the government, now 
virtually under the leadership of Somers, determined to re- 
vive the council of trade and plantations of which, it will 
be recollected, Locke had been Secretary when Shaftes- 
bury's counsels were in the ascendant at the court of 
Charles II., as far back as the year 1673. At first there 
were some difficulties with the king, but ultimately ; on 
the 15th of May, 1696, he was induced to issue the pat- 
ent appointing and defining the duties of a commission. 
Besides the great officers of state, there were to be cer- 
tain paid commissioners, with a salary of 1000/. a year, of 
whom Locke was one. His name was inserted in the first 
draft of the commission without his express consent, and 
he appears, as we can well understand, to have accepted 
the office only with extreme reluctance. Writing to Mol- 
yneux, who had congratulated him on the appointment, 
he says with evident sincerity : 

"Your congratulation I take as you meant, kindly and seriously, 
and, it may be, it is what another would rejoice in ; but His a pre- 
ferment I shall get nothing by, and I know not whether my country 
will, though that I shall aim. at with all my endeavours. Riches 
may be instrumental to so many good purposes, that it is, I think, 
vanity rather than religion or philosophy to pretend to contemn 
them. But yet they may be purchased too dear. My age and health 
demand a retreat from bustle and business, and the pursuit of some 
inquiries I have in my thoughts makes it more desirable than any 






vi.] PUBLIC OCCUPATIONS. «>:; 

of those rewards which public employments tempt people with. I 
think the little I have enough, and do not desire to live higher or die 
richer than I am. And therefore you have reason rather to pity the 
folly, than congratulate the fortune, that engages me in the whirl- 
pool." 

The duties of the commission could hardly have been 
more widely defined than they were. It was to be at 
once a Board of Trade, a Poor-Law Board, and a Colo- 
nial Office. The commissioners were to inquire into the 
general condition of trade in the country, both internal 
and external, and " to consider by what means the several 
useful and profitable manufactures already settled in the 
kingdom may be further improved; and how, and in 
what manner, new and profitable manufactures may be in- 
troduced." They were also " to consider of some proper 
methods for setting on work and employing the poor of 
the kingdom, and making them useful to the public, and 
thereby easing our subjects of that burthen." Finally, 
they were to inform themselves of the present condition 
of the plantations, as the colonies were then called, not 
only in relation to commerce, but also to the administra- 
tion of government and justice, as well as to suggest 
means of rendering them more useful to the mother coun- 
try, especially in the supply of naval stores. Here, surely, 
was work enough for men far younger and more vigor- 
ous than Locke ; but, having undertaken the duties of the 
office, he appears in no way to have spared himself. In 
the summer and autumn months he resided in London, 
and attended the meetings of the board personally, often 
day after day, and in the evening as well as the day-time. 
In the winter and spring his health compelled him to 
reside at Oates, but he was constantly sending up long 
minutes for the use of his colleagues. Mr. Fox Bourne. 



94 LOCKE. [chap. 

who has been carefully through the proceedings of the 
commission, informs us that Locke was altogether its pre- 
siding genius. He was a member of this board a little 
over four years, having been compelled by increasing ill- 
health, or, as the minutes of the council put it, "finding 
his health more and more impaired by the air of this 
city," to resign on the 28th of June, 1700. The king, we 
are told by Lady Masham, was most unwilling to receive 
his resignation, "telling him that, were his attendance 
ever so small, he was sensible his continuance in the com- 
mission would be useful to him, and that he did not 
desire he should be one day in town on that account to 
the prejudice of his health." Locke, however, was too 
conscientious to retain a place with large emoluments, of 
which he felt that he could no longer perform the duties 
to his own satisfaction. It is interesting to find that his 
successor was Matthew Prior, the poet. 

When we have seen the wide powers of the commission, 
we hardly need feel surprise that its business was multi- 
farious. It at once set to work to collect evidence of the 
state of trade in the colonies, of our commercial relations 
with foreign ports, of the condition of the linen and paper 
manufactures at home, of the number of paupers in the 
kingdom, and the mode of their relief, as well as to devise 
means for increasing the woollen trade and preventing the 
exportation of wool. Locke was specially commissioned 
"to draw up a scheme of some method of determining 
differences between merchants by referees that might be 
decisive without appeal." In the winter of 1696-97, find- 
ing that his work followed him to Oates, and being then 
apparently in a feebler state of health than usual, he made 
an ineffectual attempt to escape from his new employment, 
but Somers refused to hand in his resignation to the king. 



vi.] PUBLIC OCCUPATIONS. 06 

From a Letter to Molyneux we find that it was not sim- 
ply his ill-health, but the " corruption of the age/' which 
made him averse to continuing in office. And we can 
well understand how troublesome, and apparently hopeless, 
it must have been to deal with the various threatened in- 
terests of that time, when monopolies, patents, and pen- 
sions were regarded by the governing classes almost as a 
matter of course. 

In the summer of 1697 the principal subject which 
engaged the attention of the commission was the best 
means of discouraging the Irish woollen manufacture, and 
of, at the same time, encouraging the Irish linen manu- 
facture. Each commissioner was invited to bring up a 
separate report. Three did so. Locke's was the one 
selected, and, with slight alterations, was signed by the 
other commissioners on the 31st of August, and forward- 
ed almost immediately afterwards to the Lords Justices. 
This interesting state -document proceeds entirely upon 
the notions of protection to native industries which were 
then almost universal^ current among statesmen and 
merchants. The problems were to secure to England the 
monopoly of what was then regarded as its peculiar and 
appropriate manufacture, the woollen trade, and to assign 
to Ireland, in return for the restrictions imposed upon 
her, some compensating branch of industry. According 
to the ideas then commonly prevalent, the scheme was 
perfectly equitable to both countries. But, naturally, the 
interests of England are put in the foreground. The in- 
terests of the Irish people, however, were not to be neg- 
lected, and what Locke doubtless conceived as full compen- 
sation was to be given them for the loss of their woollen 
trade. "And since it generally proves ineffectual, and we 
conceive it hard to endeavour to drive men from the trade 



96 LOCKE. [chap. 

they are employed in by bare prohibition, without offering 
them at the same time some other trade which, if they 
please, may turn to account, we humbly propose that the 
linen manufacture be set on foot, and so encouraged in 
Ireland as may make it the general trade of that coun- 
try as effectually as the woollen manufacture is, and must 
be, of England." Linen cloth and all other manufactures 
made of flax or hemp, without any mixture of wool, were to 
be exported to all places duty free, as indeed had already 
been provided by Act of Parliament with regard to Eng- 
land. One method by which Locke proposed to encour- 
age the linen manufacture in Ireland runs so counter to 
modern notions with regard both to the education of the 
poor and to freedom of employment, that it may be in- 
teresting to the reader to see the suggestion at length : 

"And, because the poorest earning in the several parts of the 
linen manufacture is at present in the work of the spinners, who there- 
fore need the greatest encouragement, and ought to be increased as 
much as possible, that therefore spinning schools be set up in such 
places and at such distances as the directors shall appoint, where 
whoever will come to learn to spin shall be taught gratis, and to 
which all persons that have not forty shillings a year estate shall be 
obliged to send all their children, both male and female, that they 
have at home with them, from six to fourteen years of age, and may 
have liberty to send those also between four and six if they please,' 
to be employed there in spinning ten hours in the day when the days 
are so long, or as long as it is light when they are shorter : provided 
always that no child shall be obliged to go above two miles to any 
such school." 

Then there follow many other minute and paternal 
regulations of the same kind, the object of which was to 
turn the whole Irish nation into spinners, and to supply 
with linen not only " the whole kingdom of England," but 
foreign markets as well. The Irish authorities, however, 






vi.] PUBLIC OCCUPATIONS. 91 

were meanwhile preparing a scheme of their own, and, 
after controversies between the English and Irish officials, 
extending over more than two years, Locke's plan was 
finally laid aside in favour of that of Louis Crommelin. 
Besides the attempt to monopolize the woollen trade for 
England and the linen trade for Ireland, much of the time 
of the Council was devoted to schemes for the protection 
of native industries, by forbidding or throwing obstacles 
in the way of importation and exportation. But Locke 
and his colleagues were here only following the track 
marked out for them by the ordinary opinion of the time. 

The main subject which occupied the attention of the 
Council in the autumn of 1697 was the employment of 
the idle or necessitous poor. From the beginning of its 
sessions, it had been collecting evidence on this subject, 
and, in September of this year, it was decided that each 
commissioner should draw up a scheme of reform, to be 
submitted to the Council. As had been the case with his 
report on the Irish linen manufacture, Locke's was the one 
selected. From a variety of causes, however, his sugges- 
tions were never carried into effect, and the various efforts 
of William's Government to deal with the gigantic prob- 
lem of pauperism proved abortive. 

Locke's paper of suggestions assumes as a datum what 
was always regarded at this time as an axiom of poor-law 
legislation, namely, that it is the duty of each individual 
parish to maintain and employ its own poor, having, as 
a set-off, the right of coercing the able-bodied to work. 
Pernicious and partial as this principle was, we should 
have more occasion for surprise if we found Locke Contra- 
vening it than conforming to it. The merit of his paper 
is that it offers excellent suggestions for minimizing the 
evils necessarily attaching to the system then in vogue, 
5* 



98 LOCKE. [chap. 

The recent growth of pauperism he refers to "relaxation 
of discipline and corruption of manners, virtue and in- 
dustry being as constant companions on the one side as 
vice and idleness are on the other. The first step, there- 
fore," he continues, " towards the setting of the poor on 
work ought to be a restraint of their debauchery by a 
strict execution of the laws provided against it, more par- 
ticularly by the suppression of superfluous brandy-shops 
and unnecessary ale-houses, especially in country parishes 
not lying upon great roads." He then proposes a series 
of provisions, sufficiently stringent, for the purpose of com- 
pelling the idle and able-bodied poor to work, stating that, 
upon a very moderate computation, above one -half of 
those who receive relief from the parishes are able to earn 
their own livelihoods. In maritime counties, all those not 
physically or mentally incapacitated, who were found beg- 
ging out of their own parish without a pass, were to be 
compelled to serve on board one of his Majesty's ships, 
under strict discipline, for three years. In the inland 
counties, all those so found begging were to be sent to the 
nearest house of correction for a like period. But, besides 
the able-bodied paupers 7 there were a great number not 
absolutely unable or unwilling to do something for their 
livelihood, and yet prevented by age or circumstances from 
wholly earning their own living. For these he proposes 
to find employment in the woollen or other manufactures,, 
so as, at all events, to diminish the cost of their main- 
tenance to the public, and at the same time increase the 
industrial resources of the country. One of the most dis- 
tinctive features of Locke's scheme was the proposal to 
set up working-schools for spinning or knitting, or some 
other industrial occupation, in each parish, " to which the 
children of all such as demand relief of the parish, above 



vi.] RELATIONS WITH THE KING. 99 

three and under fourteen years of age, whilst they live at 
home with their parents, and are not otherwise employed 
for their livelihood by the allowance of the overseers of 
the poor, shall be obliged to come." The children were 
to be fed at school, and this mode of relief was to take 
the place of the existing allowance in money paid to a fa- 
ther who had a large number of children, which, we are 
not surprised to learn, was frequently spent in the ale- 
house, whilst those for whose benefit it was given were left 
to perish for want of necessaries. The food of the chil- 
dren of the poor at that time, we are told, was seldom 
more than bread and water, and often there was a very 
scanty supply of that. Another advantage which Locke 
proposed to effect by the institution of these schools was 
the moral and religious instruction of the children. They 
would be obliged to come constantly to church every Sun- 
day, along with their schoolmasters or dames, " whereby 
they would be brought into some sense of religion, where- 
as ordinarily now, in their idle and loose way of bringing 
up, they are as utter strangers both to religion and morali- 
ty as they are to industry." One further provision of this 
scheme may be noticed, as offering some mitigation of the 
parochial system of relief which then obtained, namely, 
" that in all cities and towns corporate the poor's tax 
be not levied by distinct parishes, but by one equal tax 
throughout the whole corporation." 

The anxiety of the king to retain Locke on the Cora" 
mission has already been mentioned. It would appear 
that they were in not infrequent conference, and we know 
that the king entertained a very high opinion both of his 
integrity and of his political capacity. A good deal of 
mystery attaches to one of their interviews, but tin 4 ex- 
planation of it proffered by Mr. Fox Bourne possesses, al 



100 LOCKE. [chap. 

any rate, considerable plausibility. One bitter January 
morning, in the winter of 1697-98, while Locke was at 
Oates, he received a pressing summons from the king to 
repair to Kensington. He was at the time suffering more 
than ordinarily from the bronchial affection to which he 
was constantly subject, and Lady Masham attempted to 
dissuade him from running the risk of the journey, but in 
vain. When he returned, the only account that he would 
give of the interview was that " the king had a desire to 
talk with him about his own health, as believing that there 
was much similitude in their cases." It appears, however, 
from a letter addressed by Locke to Somers a few days 
after his return to Oates, that the king had offered him 
some important employment, and that he had excused 
himself on the ground of his weak health, and his inexpe- 
rience in that kind of business, the business being such as 
required " skill in dealing with men in their various hu- 
mours, and drawing out their secrets." Mr. Fox Bourne 
forms the reasonable conjecture that Locke had been ask- 
ed to go as right-hand man to William Bentinck, Earl of 
Portland, who had just been nominated as special ambas- 
sador to the Court of France. The peace of Ryswick had 
been ratified in the previous November, and the mission 
to Louis XIV* was, of course, one requiring great tact and 
sagacity. William had strongly urged Locke, some years 
before, to represent him on another very important mis- 
sion, the one to the Elector of Brandenburg, and it may 
be that, on the present occasion, no fitter person occurred 
to him. Any way, the employment was one which would 
have advanced Locke in riches and honour; but as such, 
glad as he might have been to serve his country disinter- 
estedly to the best of his power, it had no attractions for 
him. " He must have a heart strongly touched with 



vi.] RELATIONS WITH THE KING. 101 

wealth or honours who, at my age, and laboring for breath, 
can find any great relish for either of them." 

On one occasion Locke accompanied the king, the lat- 
ter going incognito to a meeting of the Society of Friends, 
where they listened to the famous Quaker preacheress, 
Rebecca Collier. Locke afterwards sent her a parcel of 
sweetmeats, with a very complimentary letter, and is said 
to have found the meeting so agreeable that it removed 
his objections to a female ministry. 

With his resignation of the Commissionership of the 
Board of Trade, in the summer of 1700, Locke's public 
life comes to an end. His friend Somers had been sacri- 
ficed to the incessant and malignant attacks of the Tories, 
and dismissed from the Chancellorship, in the previous 
spring; and to those statesmen who were inspired by a 
sincere and simple desire for the well-being of their coun- 
try the political outlook had become anything but cheer- 
ful. The condition of Locke's health was quite a suffi- 
cient reason for his desiring to be relieved of the anxieties 
of office ; but we can hardly doubt that, on other grounds 
as well, he was glad to escape from so intricate a maze as 
the field of politics bade fair soon to become. 



CHAPTER VII. 

CONTROVERSY WITH STILLINGFLEET. OTHER LITERARY OC- 
CUPATIONS. DOMESTIC LIFE. — PETER KING. LATTER 

YEARS. DEATH. 

In order to resume the thread of Locke's literary and 
domestic life, it is now necessary to go back two or three 
years. I have already spoken of no less than three liter- 
ary controversies in which he found himself engaged, one 
on financial, and two on religious questions. Of the lat- 
ter, one was occasioned by the publication of the Letter on 
Toleration, the other by that of the Reasonableness of 
Christianity. The Essay also had been attacked by Nor- 
ris and other writers, including one very acute antagonist, 
John Serjeant, or Sergeant, a Roman Catholic priest ; but 
to these critics Locke did not see fit to reply. The strict- 
ures on Norris only appear among his posthumous works. 
But in the autumn of 1696 Stillingfleet, Bishop of Worces- 
ter, in his Discourse in Vindication of the Doctrine of 
the Trinity, pointedly drew attention to the principles of 
the Essay, as favouring anti- Trinitarian doctrine. Stil- 
lingfleet's position and reputation appeared to demand an 
answer, and before the year, according to the old style, 
was out, Locke's Letter to the Bishop of Worcester was 
published. The Bishop's Answer, Locke's Reply to the 
Answer, and the Bishop's "Answer to Mr. Locke's Second 
Letter, wherein his notion of ideas is proved to be incon- 



chap, vil] CONTROVERSY WITH STILLINGFLEET. 103 

sistent with itself, and with the articles of the Christian 
faith," all followed, one on the other, within a few months. 
The last letter of the series is " Mr. Locke's Reply to the 
Bishop of Worcester's Answer to his Second Letter," pub- 
lished in 1699. Stillingfleet died soon after the publica- 
tion of this pamphlet, and thus the voluminous controver- 
sy came to an end. There can be no doubt that the antag- 
onists were unequally matched. Stillingfleet was clumsy 
both in handling and argument, and constantly misrepre- 
sented or exaggerated the statements of his adversary. On 
the other hand, Locke, notwithstanding an unnecessary pro- 
lixity which wearies the modern reader, shows admirable 
skill and temper. He deals tenderly with his victim, as if 
he loved him, but, none the less, never fails to despatch 
him with a mortal stab. Stillingfleet, indeed, was no met- 
aphysician, and not very much of a logician. He did not 
see at all clearly where the orthodox doctrines were affect- 
ed, and where they remained unaffected, by Locke's phi- 
losophy, and he no doubt considerably exaggerated the 
bearing of Locke's direct statements upon them. At the 
same time, it is impossible to deny that his instincts were 
perfectly sound in apprehending grave dangers to the cur- 
rent theological opinions, and still more, perhaps, to the 
established mode of expressing them, from the il new way 
of ideas. 1 ' Religious, and even devout, as are those por- 
tions of the Essay in which Locke has occasion expressly 
to mention the, leading principles of the Christian faith, 
yet his handling of many of the metaphysical terms and 
notions which modern divines, whether Catholic or Protes- 
tant, had taken on trust from their predecessors, the fa- 
thers and schoolmen, was well calculated to alarm those 
who had the interest of theological orthodoxy at heart. 
The playful freedom with which he discusses the idea of 



104 LOCKE. [chap. 

substance seemed, not unreasonably, to strike at the termi- 
nology of the Athanasian Creed, while, most unreasonably, 
his resolution of personal identity into present and recol- 
lected states of consciousness appeared inconsistent with 
the doctrine of the Resurrection of the Dead. A far more 
powerful solvent, however, of the unreflecting and compla- 
cent orthodoxy, into which established churches, and, in 
fact, all prosperous religious communities, are apt to lapse, 
was to be found in the general drift and tendency rather 
than in the individual tenets of Locke's philosophy. And 
this fact, though only very dimly and confusedly, Stilling- 
fleet appears to have seen. To insist that words shall al- 
ways stand for determinate ideas, to attempt to trace ideas 
to their original sources, and to propose to discriminate 
between the certainty and varying probabilities of our be- 
liefs, according to the nature of the evidence on which 
they rest, is to encourage a state of mind diametrically the 
opposite of that which humbly and thankfully accepts the 
words of the religious teacher, without doubt and without 
inquiry. To the religious teacher whose own beliefs rest 
on no previous inquiry, who has never acquired " a reason 
for the faith that is in him," such a state of mind must 
necessarily be not only inconvenient but repulsive; and 
hence we have no right to feel surprised when an attempt 
is made to expose it to popular odium, or to fasten on 
those who entertain it injurious or opprobrious epithets. 
The old- standing feud, of which Plato speaks, between 
poetry and philosophy, has in great measure been trans- 
ferred, in these latter times, to philosophy and theology. 
But in both cases the antagonism is an unnecessary one. 
The highest art is compatible with the most profound 
speculation. And so we may venture to hope that the 
simple love of truth, combined with the charity "which 



til] OTHER LITERARY OCCUPATIONS. 105 

never faileth," will lead men not further away from the 
Divine presence, but nearer to, and into it. 

Here I thankfully take leave of the mass of controver- 
sial literature, in the writing of which so much of Locke's 
latter life was spent. The controversies were not of his 
own seeking, and, from all that we know of his temper 
and character, must have been as distasteful to him as 
they are wearisome to us. But prolonged and reiterated 
controversy was of the habit of the time, and no man who 
cared candidly and unreservedly to express his opinions on 
any important question could hope to escape from it. 

In the autumn of 1697, while the controversy with 
Stillingfleet was at its hottest, Locke wrote to Molyneux : 
— " I had much rather be at leisure to make some addi- 
tions to my book of Education and my Essay on Human 
Understanding, than be employed to defend myself against 
the groundless, and, as others think, trifling quarrel of the 
bishop." He was at this time engaged on preparing the 
fourth edition of the Essay for the press. In addition to 
this task, or rather as part of it, he was also employing 
himself on writing the admirable little tract on the Con- 
duct of the Understanding, the contents of which I shall 
notice in a subsequent chapter. This treatise, which was 
not published till after his death, was originally intended 
as an additional chapter to the Essay. Speaking of it in 
one of his letters to Molyneux, he says: — " I have written 
several pages on this subject ; but the matter, the farther 
I go, opens the more upon me, and I cannot yet get sight 
of any end of it. The title of the chapter will be ' Of the 
Conduct of the Understanding, 7 which, if I shall pursue 
as far as I imagine it will reach, and as it deserves, will, 1 
conclude, make the largest chapter of my Essay." It did 
II 



106 LOCKE. [chap. 

not, however, appear in the new edition, nor did Locke 
ever reduce its parts into order, or put the finishing stroke 
to it. He may, perhaps, have intended to revise it for a 
subsequent edition of the Essay, but the fourth was the 
last which appeared during his lifetime. 

Before speaking of the literary labours which occupied 
the last years of Locke's life, I may here conveniently re- 
cur to his domestic history. Of his quiet life with the 
Mashams little more need be said. Had Lady Mashami 
been his daughter, she could not have tended him more 
carefully or lovingly ; and had he been her father, he could 
not have entertained a more sincere solicitude for the wel- 
fare of her and her family. All Locke's friends were wel- 
come at Oates, and seem to have been regarded quite as 
much as friends of the Mashams as of his own. And 
Oates appears in every respect to have been as much 
Locke's home as that of its owners. In the whole of his 
correspondence, there does not appear the slightest trace 
of those petty piques and annoyances, those small desagre- 
ments, which are so apt to grow up among people who 
live much together, even when, at bottom, they entertain 
a deep love and admiration for each other. On the side 
of the Mashams we know that the tide of affection ran 
equally smooth. Lady Masham ar»^ Esther acted as his 
nurses, and with one or other of them he seems to have 
shared all his pursuits. The intimacy and sweetness of 
these relations surely imply as rare an amount of amiabil- 
ity of temper and power of winning regard on the one 
side, as of patieuce and devotion on the other. But then 
Locke possessed the inestimable gift of cheerfulness, which 
renders even the invalid's chamber a joy to those who en- 
ter it. All the glimpses we obtain of the life .at Oates 



til] DOMESTIC LIFE. 107 

represent it as a gay and pleasant one, none the less gay 
and pleasant because its enjoyments were modest and ra- 
tional. After complaining to Molyneux of the persistent 
asthma which confined him a close prisoner to the house 
.during the winter of 1697-98, he adds, "I wish, neverthe- 
less, that you were here with me to see how well I am ; 
for you would find that, sitting by the fireside, I could 
bear my part in discoursing, laughing, and being merry 
with you, as well as ever I could in my life. If you were 
here (and if wishes of more than one could bring you, 
you would be here to-day) you would find three or four 
in the parlour after dinner, who, you would say, passed 
their afternoons as agreeably and as jocundly as any peo- 
ple you have this good while met with." Locke's con- 
versation is reported to have been peculiarly fascinating. 
Lie had a large stock of stories, and is said to have had a 
singularly easy and humorous way of telling them. 

Among the more frequent guests at Oates at this time 
were Edward Clarke and his daughter Betty, Locke's " lit- 
tle wife," now fast growing up to womanhood, a son of 
Limborch, and a son of Benjamin Furly, both engaged 
in mercantile pursuits in London, and a young kinsman 
of Locke's own, Peter King, of whom I shall have more 
to say presently. One of the most anxiously expected 
guests, whose visits had been often promised and often 
deferred, w 7 as the correspondent of whom we have heard 
so much, William Molyneux., At length, after the rising 
of the British Parliament in the summer of 1698, the two 
friends met. Even on this occasion, Molyneux had been 
obliged to defer his promised visit for some weeks, on ac- 
count of a recent trouble which he had brought on himself 
J^y the publication of a "home-rule" pamphlet, protesting 
against the interference of the English Parliament in Irish 



108 LOCKE. [chap. 

affairs. Both Houses had joined in an address to the 
king, praying for punishment on the offender ; but the 
king, possibly through Locke's intervention, had wisely 
taken no notice of the petition. Any way, after the pro- 
rogation, Molyneux seems to have felt sufficiently secure 
to venture on a journey across the Channel. He and 
Locke were together for some time both in London and at 
Oates. The friends, though they had been in such con- 
stant and intimate correspondence for six years, had never 
met before. We may easily imagine how warm was their 
greeting, how much they had to talk about, and how loath 
they were to separate. " I will venture to assert to you," 
wrote Molyneux on his return to Dublin, u that I cannot 
recollect, through the whole course of my life, such signal 
instances of real friendship as when I had the happiness 
of your company for five weeks together in London. 
That part thereof especially which I passed at Oates has 
made such an agreeable impression on my mind that 
nothing can be more pleasing." Shortly after writing 
this letter, Molyneux died at the early age of forty-two. 
" His worth and his friendship to me," writes Locke, in 
a letter to Burridge, the Latin translator of the Essay, 
" made him an inestimable treasure, which I must regret 
the loss of the little remainder of my life, without any 
hopes of repairing it any way." He then characteristical- 
ly goes on to ask if there is any service he can render to 
Molyneux's son. " They who have the care of him can- 
not do me a greater pleasure than to give me the oppor- 
tunity to show that my friendship died not with his fa- 
ther." One of the most amiable and attractive traits in 
Locke's character is the eagerness which he always dis- 
played in advising, encouraging, or helping forward the 
sops of his friends. Any opportunity of doing so always 



til] PETER KING. 109 

gave him the most evident satisfaction, as, from his corre- 
spondence, we see in the case of Frank Mash am, the two 
young Furlys, young Limborch, and numerous others. 

I must now no longer delay the introduction to the 
reader of Locke's young cousin, Peter King. Locke had 
an uncle, Peter Locke, whose daughter Anne had married 
Jeremy King, a grocer and Salter in a substantial way of 
business at Exeter. Such a marriage was not necessarily 
any disparagement to Anne Locke's family, as the pres- 
ent line of demarcation between professional men and the 
smaller gentry, on the one side, and substantial retail 
tridesmen, on the other, hardly existed at that time. 
They had a son, Peter, born in 1669, who was conse- 
quently Locke's first cousin once removed. The boy 
seems for some time to have been employed in his father's 
business, but he had a voracious appetite for books, and 
showed a decided talent for the acquisition of learning. 
Locke, on one of his visits to Exeter, discovered these 
qualities, and persuaded Peter King's parents to allow him 
to change his mode of life, and study for one of the learn- 
ed professions. Whether he went to any English school 
does not appear; but, during Locke's stay in Holland, he 
resided for some time in the University of Leyden. His 
studies there embraced at least classics, theology, and law ; 
and when he returned to England, apparently in 1690, he 
brought back with him a pamphlet entitled An Enquiry 
into the Constitution and Discipline of the Primitive 
Church. As in this treatise he maintained that Presby- 
terianism was the original form of Church government, he 
probably never had any serious intention, notwithstanding 
his theological proclivities of entering holy orders in the 
Established Church. Any way, in ( >ot< »l>or, 1694, \\c was 
entered a student of the Middle Temple; and in Trinity 



110 LOCKE. [chap. 

Term, 1698, lie was called to the bar. During his resi- 
dence in London as a law student, he must have' been fre- 
quently at Oates, and Locke must have frequently visited 
him in his chambers in the Temple. The first extant let- 
ter from Locke to King, dated June 27, 1698, at any rate, 
assumes intimacy and frequency of intercourse. " Your 
company here had been ten times welcomer than any the 
best excuse you could send ; but you may now pretend to 
be a man of business, and there can be nothing said to 
you." Very sound was the advice with which the elder 
relative concluded his letter to the voung barrister: 
"When you first open your mouth at the bar, it should 
be in some easy plain matter that you are perfectly master 
of." King's success in his profession was very rapid, and 
he soon became one of the most popular counsel on the 
Western Circuit. In the general election of 1700 he at- 
tained one of the first objects of ambition at which a 
rising young barrister generally aims — a seat in the House 
of Commons. Owing, probably, to his cousin's influence 
with the Whig leaders, he was returned for the small 
borough of Beer Alston, in Devonshire, which he contin- 
ued to represent in several successive Parliaments. Locke, 
writing to him shortly before the meeting of Parliament, 
entreats him not to go circuit, as he had intended to do, 
but to devote himself at once to his Parliamentary duties. 
" I am sure there was never so critical a time, when every 
honest member of Parliament ought to watch his trust, 
and that you will see before the end of the next vacation." 
The loss to his pocket, his good relative intimates, del- 
icately enough, shall be amply made up to him. King- 
took his cousin's advice on this point, but, fortunately and 
wisely, did not take it on another. " My advice to you is 
not to speak at all in the House for some time, whatever 



Til.] PETER KING. Ill 

fair opportunity you may seem to have." King was ad- 
vised to communicate his "light or apprehensions" to 
some "honest speaker," who might make use of them for 
hirn. Locke, we must remember, was now becoming old, 
and though not, like many old men, jealous of his juniors, 
he could not escape the infirmity of all old men, that of 
exaggerating the youthful ness of youth, and so of insist- 
ing too stringently on the modesty becoming those in 
whom he was interested. King broke the ice soon after 
the meeting of Parliament, and Locke had the prudence 
and good-nature to show no resentment at his advice hav- 
ing been neglected. His cousin, however, never became a 
great Parliamentary speaker ; but he soon gained a repu- 
tation for being a thoroughly sound lawyer and a thor- 
oughly honest man. He rose successively to be Recorder 
of London, Lord Chief Justice of the Common Pleas, and 
Lord High Chancellor of England. He was also ennobled 
as Lord King of Ockham, and, by a very curious coinci- 
dence, his four sons in succession bore the same title. To 
one of his descendants, his great-grandson, also named 
Peter, we owe the publication of many documents and 
letters connected with Locke, and the biography so well 
known as Lord King's Life of Locke. The present repre- 
sentative of the family, and the direct descendant in the 
male line of Peter King, is the Earl of Lovelace. As 
Peter King was, to all intents, Locke's adopted son, we 
may thus regard Locke as the founder of an illustrious 
line in the English peerage, and there are certainly few, if 
any, of our ennobled families who can point to a founder 
whose name is so likely to be the heritage of all future 
ages. 

King kept Locke well posted in all that went on in 
Parliament, and seems also to have been a constant visitor 



112 LOCKE. [chap. 

at Gates. Soon after his election, Sir Francis Masham had 
considerately proposed to Locke that his cousin should 
" steal down sometimes with him on Saturday, and return 
on Monday." On one of these occasions, in the Easter 
holidays of 1701, King was accompanied by young Lord 
Ashley, now become the third Earl of Shaftesbury. Locke 
had then surmounted his winter troubles, and his old pu- 
pil pronounces him as well as he had ever known him. 

Amongst Locke's correspondents in these years was 
the celebrated physician, Dr. Sloane, now Secretary of the 
Royal Society, afterwards created Sir Hans Sloane. In 
writing to him at the end of the century, evidently in 
answer to a request, Locke proposes a scheme for rectify- 
ing the calendar. Notwithstanding the reformation which 
had already taken place in many foreign countries, it will 
be recollected that the English year then began on the 
25th of March, instead of the 1st of January, and that, 
by reckoning the year at exactly 365^ days, or at 11 m. 
14 sec. longer than its actual length, our time lagged ten 
days behind that of most other European countries, as 
well as the real solar time. The inconvenience, especially 
in transactions with foreign merchants, had become very 
great. The advent of the new century, inasmuch as the 
centenary year would be counted as a leap-year in Eng- 
land, but not in other countries where the new style or 
Gregorian .calendar prevailed, would add an eleventh day 
to the amount of discrepancy, and hence the subject w T as 
now attracting more than ordinary attention. Locke's 
remedy was to omit the intercalar day in the year 1700, 
according to the rule of the Gregorian calendar, as also for 
the ten next leap-years following, " by which easy way," he 
says, " we should in forty-four years insensibly return to 
the new style." " This," he adds, " I call an easy way, be- 



yn] LATTER YEARS. 113 

cause it would be without prejudice or disturbance to any 
one's civil rights, which, by lopping off ten or eleven days 
at once in any one year, might perhaps receive inconven- 
ience, the only objection that ever I heard made against 
rectifying our account/' He also suggested that the year 
should begin, as in most other European countries, on the 
1st of January. No change, however, was made till, by an 
Act of Parliament passed in 1750-51, it was ordered that 
the year 1752 should begin on the 1st of January, and 
that the day succeeding the 2nd of September in that year 
should be reckoned as the 14th. Locke's other correspond- 
ence with Sloan e shows the interest which he still took in 
medical matters, and how ready he always was to expend 
time and thought on attending to the ailments of his poor 
neighbours at Oates. 

During the latter years of Locke's life his principal lit- 
erary employment consisted in paraphrasing and writing 
commentaries on some of St. Paul's epistles. He thought 
that this portion of Scripture offered peculiar difficulties, 
and finding, as he says, that he did not understand it him- 
self, he set to work, rather for his own sake, and perhaps 
also that of the household at Oates, than with any view 
of publication, to attempt to clear up its obscurities. The 
labour was a work of love ; and to a man of Locke's de- 
vout disposition, with almost a child-like confidence in the 
guidance of Scripture, the occupation must have afforded 
a peculiar solace in the intervals of his disease, and as 
he felt that he was rapidly approaching the confines of 
that other world which had so long been familiar to his 
thoughts. Though he was induced to consent to the pub- 
lication of these commentaries, and though lie himself 
prepared an introduction to them, they did not appear till 
after his death. They were then issued by instalments, 
6 



114 LOCKE. [chap. 

coming out at intervals between 1705 and 1707 inclu- 
sively. 

Locke's political interests, always keen, were specially 
active in the winter of 1/701-02. England was just then 
on the point of engaging in the war of the Spanish Suc- 
cession. In the previous September an alliance against 
France and Spain had been concluded between the em- 
peror and the two great maritime powers, England and 
Holland. Almost immediately after tfhe conclusion of this 
treaty, James the Second had died at St. Germain, and not 
only had the French king allowed his son to be proclaimed 
King of England but had himself received him with royal 
honors at the court of Versailles. The patriotic and Prot- 
estant feeling of the country was thoroughly roused, and 
the new Parliament, which met on the 30th of December, 
was prepared to take the most energetic measures for the 
purpose of supporting the national honor and the Protes- 
tant succession. The king's speech, on opening the Parlia- 
ment, excited an outburst of enthusiasm throughout the 
nation. He conjured the members to disappoint the hopes 
of their enemies by, their unanimity. As he was ready to 
show himself the common father of his people, he exhorted 
them to cast out the spirit of party and division, so that 
there might no longer be any distinction but between those 
who were friends to the Protestant religion and the present 
establishment, and those who wished for a popish prince 
and a French government. The speech was printed in Eng- 
lish, Dutch, and French, framed, and hung up, as an article 
of furniture, in the houses of good Protestants, both at 
home and abroad. Locke, writing to Peter King four days 
after the meeting of Parliament, asks him to send a copy 
of the king's speech, " printed by itself, and without paring 
off the edges." He suowsts that, in addition to what the 



vil] LATTER YEARS. 115 

two Houses had done, the city of London and counties of 
England should, " with joined hearts and hands return his 
Majesty addresses of thanks for his taking such care of 
them." " Think of this with yourself," he says, " and 
think of it with others who can and ought to think how 
to save us out of the hands of France, into which we must 
fall, unless the whole nation exert its utmost vigour, and 
that speedily." He is specially urgent on his cousin not 
to leave town, or to think of circuit business, till the king- 
dom has been put in an effectual state of defence. " I 
think it no good husbandry for a man to get a few fees 
on circuit and lose Westminster Hall." By losing West- 
minster Hall he does not, apparently, mean losing the 
chance of a judgeship, but forfeiting those rights and 
liberties, and that personal and national independence 
which the Revolution had only so lately restored. "For, 
I assure you, Westminster Hall is at stake, and I wonder 
how any one of the house can sleep till he sees England 
in a better state of defence, and how he can talk of any- 
thing else till that is done." But a majority, at least, of 
the House of Commons was fully alive to its responsibili- 
ties ; enormous supplies were voted, and almost every con- 
ceivable measure was taken for securing the Protestant 
succession to the crown. A few days after Locke wrote 
the letter last quoted, King William died. His reflections 
on that event or on the political prospects under William's 
successor, we do not possess. 

As the war proceeded, Locke's old friend, the Earl of 
Monmouth, now become Earl of Peterborough, was en- 
trusted with a naval expedition against the Spanish pos- 
sessions in the West Indies. He had a great desire to see 
Locke before his departure, and, Locke being unable to 
come up to London, lie and the Countess drove down to 



116 LOCKE. [chap. 

Oates about the middle of November, 1702. It is char- 
acteristic of the times that Locke was " much in pain " 
about their getting back safely to town, the days being 
then so short. His young friend, Arent Furly, who was 
also a protege and frequent correspondent of Lord Shaftes- 
bury, went out as Lord Peterborough's secretary, and seems 
to have acquitted himself in the position with marked 
diligence and success. The early promise which he gave, 
however, was soon blighted. This young play-fellow and 
foster-child, as he might almost have been called, of Locke, 
died only a few years after him, in 1711 or 1712. Be- 
fore accompanying Lord Peterborough on his expedition, 
he had been living for some time, first at Oates, and after- 
wards in lodgings in the neighbourhood, for the purpose 
of learning English. 

It is gratifying to find that, during the autumn of this 
year, Locke had received a visit from Newton. During 
the discussion of the re-coinage question, and the active 
operations which followed for the purpose of carrying out 
the decisions of Parliament, they must have been thrown 
a good deal together. Montague declared that, had it not 
been for the energetic measures taken by Newton, as War- 
den of the Mint, the re-coinage would never have been 
effected. When, however, Newton came down to visit 
Locke at Oates, in 1702, their conversation seems to have 
turned mainly on theological topics. Locke showed New- 
ton his notes upon the Corinthians, and Newton requested 
the loan of them. But, like most borrowers, he neglected 
to return them, nor did he take any notice of a letter from 
Locke, who was naturally very anxious to recover his man- 
uscript. Peter King was asked to try to manage the mat 
ter. He was to call at Newton's residence in Jermyn 
Street, to deliver a second note, and to find out, if he could, 



vil] LATTER YEARS. 117 

the reasons of Newton's silence, and of his having kept 
the papers so long. But he was to do this " with all the 
tenderness in the world, for " he is a nice man to deal with, 
and a little too apt to raise in himself suspicions where 
there is no ground." The emissary was also, if he could 
do it with sufficient adroitness, to discover Newton's opin- 
ion of the Commentary. But he was by no means to 
give the slightest cause of offence. "Mr. 'Newton is real- 
ly a very valuable man, not only for his wonderful skill in 
mathematics, but in divinity too, and his great knowledge 
in the Scriptures, wherein I know few his equals. And 
therefore pray manage the whole matter so as not only to 
preserve me in his good opinion, but to increase me in it ; 
and be sure to press him to nothing but what he is for- 
ward in himself to do." In this letter Locke, notwith- 
standing the caution with which he felt it necessary to 
approach one of so susceptible a temperament, says, " I 
have several reasons to think him truly my friend." And 
in this generous judgment there can be little doubt he 
was right. The friends probably never met again, but 
Newton is said to have paid a visit, on one of his jour- 
neys perhaps from London to Cambridge, to Locke's tomb 
at High Laver. Peter King succeeded in recovering the 
manuscript, and at the same time or soon afterwards there 
came a letter, criticising one of Locke's interpretations, 
but expressing a general opinion that the "paraphrase and 
commentary on these two epistles is done with very great 
care and judgment." 

Something should here be said of two friends whom 
Locke had made in later life, one of whom seems to have 
been constantly about him during his last years. The 
less intimate of these was Samuel Bolde, a Dorsetshire 
clergyman, who had come forward, in U) ( ,)7, to defend the 



118 LOCKE. [chap. 

Reasonableness of Christianity against Edwards' attacks, 
and who afterwards did Locke a similar service in reply- 
ing to the assailants of the Essay. He was one of Locke's 
correspondents, and once at least paid him a visit at 
Oates. Bolde's outspokenness and independence of judg- 
ment naturally excited Locke's admiration. There are 
some memorable sentences in a letter written to him in 
1699. "To be learned in the lump by other men's 
thoughts, and to be in the right by saying after others, is 
the much easier and quieter way ; but how a rational man, 
that should inquire and know for himself, can content 
himself with a faith or a religion taken upon trust, or with 
such a servile submission of his understanding as to admit 
all and nothing else but what fashion makes passable among 
men, is to me astonishing. I do not wonder you should 
have, in many points, different apprehensions from what 
you meet with in authors. With a free mind, which un- 
biassedly pursues truth, it cannot be otherwise." After 
expanding these thoughts, and applying them to the study 
of Scripture, he goes on to advise Bolde how to supply a 
mental defect that he had complained of, namely, that " he 
lost many things because they slipped from him." The 
simple method was to write them down as they occurred. 
" The great help to the memory is writing," Bacon had 
said. Locke emphasizes the dictum, and adds, " If you 
have not tried it, you cannot imagine the difference there 
is in studying with and without a pen in your hand." 
" The thoughts that come unsought^and as it were drop- 
ped into the mind, are commonly the most valuable of any 
we have, and therefore should be secured, because they sel- 
dom return again." 

The other friend, whose acquaintance had only been 
made during these later years, was Anthony Collins, who 



til] LATTER YEARS. 11* 

was not more than twenty-eight years of age when Locke 
died. Collins afterwards attained great celebrity as a De- 
istical writer, but none of his theological works appeared 
till some time after Locke's death. Locke, with his sin- 
cere and simple belief in the divine origin of the Christian 
Revelation, would doubtless, had he lived to see them, have 
been shocked with their matter, and still more with their 
style. But at the present time Collins presented himself 
to him simply in the light of an ingenuous young man, 
with rare conversational powers and wide interests, and 
with what Locke valued far more, an eager desire to find 
out the truth. No one can have read the tracts, An En- 
quiry concerning Human Liberty, and Liberty and Neces- 
sity, without recognizing the acuteness and directness of 
Collins' intellect, and these, we know, were qualities al- 
ways peculiarly acceptable to Locke. Moreover, to en- 
courage and bring forward younger men had invariably 
been one of his main delights. Hence we may, perhaps, 
abate our surprise at the apparently exaggerated language 
in which he addresses this friend, who was so much his 
junior in age, and who must have become known to him 
only so recently. " Why do you make yourself so nec- 
essary to me ? I thought myself pretty loose from the 
world; but I feel you begin to fasten me to it again. For 
you make my life, since I have had your friendship, much 
more valuable to me than it was before." " If I were now 
setting out in the world, I should think it my great hap- 
piness to have such a companion as you, who had a relish 
for truth, would in earnest seek it with me, from whom I 
might receive it undisguised, and to whom I might com- 
municate freely what I thought true. Believe it, my good 
friend, to love truth for truth's sake is the principal part 
of human perfection in this world and the seed-plot of all 



120 LOCKE. [chap. 

other virtues, and, if I mistake not, you have as much of 
it as I ever met with in anybody." Then he adds pathet- 
ically, but with a tone of hopefulness in the labours of 
others which is not commonly found amongst old men, 
" When I consider how much of my life has been trifled 
away in beaten tracks, where I vamped on with others 
only to follow those that went before us, I cannot but 
think I have just as much reason to be proud as if I had 
travelled all England, and, if you will, France too, only to 
acquaint myself with the roads and be able to tell how 
the highways lie, wherein those of equipage, and even the 
herd too, travel. Now, methinks — and these are often 
old men's dreams — I see openings to truth and direct 
paths leading to it, wherein a little industry and applica- 
tion would settle one's mind with satisfaction, and leave 
no darkness or doubt. But this is at the end of my day, 
when my sun is setting ; and though the prospect it has 
given me be what I would not for anything be without — 
there is so much irresistible truth, beauty, and consistency 
in it — yet it is for one of your age, I think I ought to say 
for yourself, to set about it." What were those " open- 
ings to truth and direct paths leading to it V Were they 
merely the delusive visions of an old man's fancies, or had 
he really formed wider conceptions of science, and pict- 
ured to himself more precise and fertile methods of reach- 
ing it? The sciences, it is needless to observe, have grown 
vastly since Locke's day ; the methods of scientific re- 
search are far more numerous, more accurate, richer in 
their results. Had Locke, in his thoughts at this time, at 
all anticipated the courses which inquiry and knowledge 
have since taken ? 

The letter to Collins, from which I have just quoted, 
was written on Oct. 29, 1703. Within a year of that 



vil] LATTER YEARS. 121 

date the end came. The wonder, indeed, is that, with his 
persistent malady, aggravated apparently in these latter 
years with other disorders, Locke's life had continued so 
long. The reasons are probably to be sought in his un- 
failing cheerfulness, in the variety of interests which di- 
verted his mind from the thought of his own ailments, 
and in the judicious manner in which he regulated his 
exercise and diet. Of these personal traits something 
may conveniently here be said. The remarkable cheer- 
fulness of his disposition, his lively sense of humour, and 
his power of extracting amusement from all that was go- 
ing on around him, have frequently come before us in the 
course of this biography. His temper was not moody, 
like that of so many men of letters, but pre-eminently 
sociable. When not actually engaged in his studies, he 
always liked to be in company, and enjoyed especially the 
society of young people and children. He had a happy 
knack of talking to his companions for the time being on 
the subjects which interested them most, and in this way 
he gained a very extensive knowledge of the various kinds 
of business, and of a variety of arts and crafts. To work- 
ing people he was often able to give very useful hints as 
to their own employments. This union of conversational 
qualities, grave and gay, invariably made him a welcome 
addition to any company, young or old, gentle or simple. 
An even temper, and a combination of happy gifts of this 
kind, will carry a man through much suffering, bodily and 
mental. From any mental troubles, on his own account, 
Locke seems, during these latter years of his life, to have 
been remarkably free. From bodily suffering he was rare- 
ly exempt, but he always endured it with resignation, and 
endeavoured to obviate its causes by every precaution, 
which his prudence or medical skill suggested. Thus, we 
I 6* 



122 LOCKE. [chap. 

have seen that, whenever it was possible, he preferred the 
quiet life and pure air of the country to the many attrac- 
tions which the capital must have offered to a man with 
his wide acquaintance, and with so many political and lit- 
erary interests. In diet he practised an abstemiousness 
very rare among men of that age. His ordinary drink 
was water, and to this habit he attributed not only his 
length of years, but also the extraordinary excellence of 
his eyesight. Till recently, a curious relic of Locke's wa- 
ter-drinking habits was preserved in the shape of a large 
mortar of spongy stone, which acted as a natural filter, and 
which he used to call his brew-house. He was assiduous 
in taking exercise, and was specially fond of walking and 
gardening. In the latter years of his life he used to ride 
out slowly every day after dinner. When advising his 
friend Clarke about his health, he says, "I know nothing 
so likely to produce quiet sleep as riding about gently in 
the air for many hours every day," and then, like a truly 
wise doctor, he adds, " If your mind can be brought to 
contribute a little its part to the laying aside troublesome 
ideas, I could hope this may do much." At last, when 
he was no longer able to sit on horseback, he commis- 
sioned Collins to have an open carriage specially made 
for him, the principle on which it was to be constructed 
being that " convenient carries it before ornamental." 

In November, 1703, the Heads of Houses at Oxford — 
who at that time constituted the governing body, and 
through whose repressive and reactionary administration 
the evil genius of Laud then and long afterwards contin- 
ued to cast a blight on the University — resolved to dis- 
courage the reading of Locke's Essay. The attempt was 
futile, as they relied, not on coercion, but on the influence 
of their authority, which appears to have been held very 



vn.] LATTER YEARS. 123 

cheap. Locke was now far too eminent a man to be 
troubled by so anile a demonstration of foliy. " I take 
what has been done as a recommendation of my book to 
the world," he says, in a letter to Collins; and then he 
promises himself and his friend much merriment on the 
subject when they next meet. 

Locke's last literary labour appears to have been his 
Fourth Letter for Toleration. Jonas Proast, after a long 
interval, had returned to the charge in a pamphlet pub- 
lished in 1704; and Locke, unfortunately, thought it in- 
cumbent on him to reply, though he had long ceased to 
pay any regard to the assailants of the Essay. The Let- 
ter is unfinished. Its last words cannot have been writ- 
ten long before Locke's death. 

The winter of 1703-04 seems to have been peculiarly 
trying to his health. He hardly expected to live through 
it; but he still maintained his cheerfulness, and followed 
his usual employments. On the 11th of April, 1704, he 
made his will — perhaps not his first. To most of his 
friends, relatives, and dependents he left some remem- 
brance ; but the bulk of his personal property he left to 
Frank Masham and Peter King, the latter of whom was 
sole executor and residuary legatee. All his manuscripts 
were left to King. Many of these were published for the 
first time by the seventh Lord King, in his Life of Locke. 
His land he designedly did not will, and so it devolved 
by law, in equal shares, on his two cousins, Peter King 
and Peter Stratton. His funeral was to be conducted 
without any ostentation, and what it would otherwise have 
cost was to be divided amongst four poor labourers at 
Oates. 

The approach of summer had not its usual restorative 
effect upon him. On the other hand, all the bad symp- 



124 LOCKE. [chap. 

toms of his disease increased. To use his own expression, 
"the dissolution of the cottage was not far off." In a 
letter, written on the 1st of June, he earnestly pressed 
King to come to him, that he might pass some of the last 
hours of his life " in the conversation of one who is not 
only the nearest but the dearest to me of any man in the 
world." Both King and Collins seem to have visited him 
frequently during the last months of his life; and their 
society being cheerful, and the topics of their conversation 
interesting, he appears to have taken great pleasure in 
their company. He did not, however, find equal enjoy- 
ment in the visit of Dr. Edward Fowler, Bishop of Glou- 
cester, who, like himself, was in a bad state of health. " I 
find two groaning people make but an uncomfortable con- 
cert." The moral he draws is, that men should enjoy 
their health and youth while they have it, " to all the ad- 
vantages and improvements of an innocent and pleasant 
life," remembering that merciless old age is in pursuit of 
them. The lamp of life was now dimly flickering, but 
once more it burnt up in the socket before going out for- 
ever. Peter King had been married on the 10th of Sep- 
tember, and he and his bride must be received with all 
due honours at Gates. King was asked to cater for his 
own wedding feast, and goodly and dainty is the list of 
delicacies which he was to buy. But something, perhaps, 
might be omitted in which Mrs. King took special delight. 
"If there be anything that you can find your wife loves, 
be sure that provision be made of that, and plentifully, 
whether I have mentioned it or no." The feast was to 
be cooked by " John Gray, who was bred up in my Lord 
Shaftesbury's kitchen, and was my Lady Dowager's cook." 
The wedded pair arrived at Oates towards the end of the 
month, and well can we picture to ourselves the pride and 



til] DEATH. 125 

pleasure with which the genial old man entertained the 
wife of his cousin and adopted son — the adopted son 
whom he had rescued from the grocer's shop at Exeter, 
and whose future eminence he must now have pretty 
clearly foreseen. A few days after King left Oates, he 
solemnly committed to him by letter the care of Frank 
Masham. "It is my earnest request to you to take care 
of the youngest son of Sir Francis and Lady Masham in 
all his concerns, as if he were your brother. Take care to 
make him a good, an honest, and an upright man. I have 
left my directions with him to follow your advice, and I 
know he will do it; for he never refused to do what I 
told him was fit." Then, turning to King himself, he 
says, " I wish you all manner of prosperity in this world, 
and the everlasting happiness of the world to come. That 
I loved you, I think you are convinced.'' 

Peter King certainly executed the dying request of his 
cousin, so far as Frank *Masham's material interests were 
concerned. Soon after he became Lord Chancellor, Frank 
Masham was appointed to the newly constituted office of 
Accountant-General in the Court of Chancery, a lucrative 
post, conferring the same status as a Mastership. 

Locke retained his faculties and his cheerfulness to the 
last; but he grew gradually weaker day by day. "Few 
people," says Lady Masham, " do so sensibly see death 
approach them as he did." A few days before his death 
he received the sacrament from the parish minister, pro- 
fessing his perfect charity with all men, and his " sincere 
communion with the whole Church of Christ, by whatever 
name Christ's followers call themselves." In the last 
hours he talked much with the Masharas about their eter- 
nal concerns. As for himself he had lived long enough, 
and enjoyed a happy life; but he looked forward to a 



126 LOCKE. [chap, to 

better. At length, on the afternoon of the 28th of Oc- 
tober, the spirit left him, and the earthly tabernacle was 
dissolved. His body is buried in the churchyard of High 
Laver, in a pleasant spot on the south side of the church. 
The Latin epitaph on the wall above the tomb was writ- 
ten by himself. It tells us that he had lived content with 
his own insignificance : that, brought up among letters, 
he had advanced just so far as to make an acceptable 
offering to truth alone : if the traveller wanted an exam- 
ple of good life, he would find one in the Gospel ; if of 
vice, would that he could find one nowhere ; if of mortal- 
ity, there and everywhere. 

" His death," says Lady Masham, " was, like his life, 
truly pious, yet natural, easy, and unaffected ; nor can 
time, I think, ever produce a more eminent example of 
reason and religion than he w r as, living and dying." 



'■ 



CHAPTER VIII. 

ESSAY ON THE HUMAN UNDERSTANDING. 

"Were it fit to trouble thee," says Locke in his Epis- 
tle to the Reader, " with the history of this Essay, I 
should tell thee that five or six friends meeting at my 
chamber, and discoursing- on a subject very remote from 
this, found themselves quickly at a stand by the difficul- 
ties that rose on every side. After we had a while puzzled 
ourselves, without coming any nearer a resolution of those 
doubts which perplexed us, it came into my thoughts that 
we took a wrong course ; and that, before we set ourselves 
upon inquiries of that nature, it was necessary to examine 
our own abilities, and see what objects our understandings 
were or were not fitted to deal with. This I proposed to 
the company, who all readily assented ; and thereupon it 
was agreed that this should be our first inquiry." 

This passage may serve not only to describe the occa- 
sion of Locke's Essay, but also to indicate the circum- 
stance which constitutes the peculiar merit and originali- 
ty of Locke as a philosopher. The science which we now 
call Psychology, or the study of mind, had hitherto, amongst 
modern writers, been almost exclusively subordinated to 
the interests of other branches of speculation. Sonic ex- 
ception must, indeed, be made in favour oi Hobbes and 



128 LOCKE. [chap. 

Gassendi, Descartes and Spinoza ; but all these authors 
treated the questions of psychology somewhat cursorily, 
while the two former seem usually to have had in view 
the illustration of some favourite position in physics or 
ethics, the two latter the ultimate establishment of some 
proposition relating to the nature or attributes of God. 
We may say then, without much exaggeration, that Locke 
was the first of modern writers to attempt at once an in- 
dependent and a complete treatment of the phenomena of 
the human mind, of their mutual relations, of their causes 
and limits. His object was, as he himself phrases it, " to 
inquire into the original, certainty, and extent of human 
knowledge ; together with the grounds and degrees of 
belief, opinion, and assent." This task he undertakes not 
in the dogmatic spirit of his predecessors, but in the 
critical spirit which he may be said to have almost in- 
augurated. As far as it is possible for a writer to divest 
himself of prejudice, and to set to his work with a candid 
and open mind, seeking help and information from all 
quarters, Locke does so. And the effect of his candour 
on his first readers must have been enhanced by the fact, 
not always favourable to his precision, that, as far as he 
can, he throws aside the technical terminology of the 
schools, and employs the language current in the better 
kinds of ordinary literature and the well-bred society of 
his time. The absence of pedantry and of parti pris in a 
philosophical work was at that time so rare a recommen- 
dation that, no doubt, these characteristics contributed 
largely to the rapid circulation and the general acceptance 
of the Essay. 

The central idea, which dominates Locke's work, is that 
all our knowledge is derived from experience. But this 
does not strike us so much as a thesis to be maintained 



viil] ESSAY ON THE HUMAN UNDERSTANDING. 129 

as a conclusion arrived at after a vast amount of patient 
thought and inquiry. Have we any ideas independent of 
experience? or, as Locke phrases it, are there any Innate 
Principles in the mind ? 

" It is an established opinion amongst some men that there are in 
the Understanding certain Innate Principles, some Primary Notions, 
KOLval evvoiai, characters, as it were, stamped upon the mind of man, 
which the Soul receives in its very first being and brings into the 
world with it." 

This is the opinion which Locke examines and refutes 
in the first, or introductory, book of the Essay. It has 
often been objected that he mistakes and exaggerates the 
position which he is attacking. And so far as his dis- 
tinguished predecessor, Descartes, is concerned (though to 
what extent Locke has him in mind, his habit of not 
referring to other authors by name prevents us from 
knowing), this is undoubtedly the case. For Pescartes, 
though he frequently employs and accepts the expression 
" innate notions" or "innate ideas," concedes, as so many 
philosophers of the same school have done since, that this 
native knowledge is only implicit, and requires definite 
experiences to elicit it. Thus, in his notes on the Pro- 
gramme of Regius, he expressly compares these innate 
notions or ideas with the nobility which is characteristic 
of certain ancient stocks, or with diseases, such as gout or 
gravel, which are said to be " innate " in certain families, 
not " because the infants of those families suffer from 
these diseases in their mother's womb, but because they 
are born with a certain disposition or tendency to contract 
them." Here Descartes seems to have been on the very 
point of stumbling on the principle of heredity which, in 
the hands of recent physiologists and psychologists, has 
done so much towards reconciling rival theories on the 



130 LOCKE. [chap. 

nature and origin of knowledge and clearing up many of 
the difficulties which attach to this branch of speculation. 
It must be confessed, however, that in his better-known 
works he often employs unguarded and unexplained ex- 
pressions which might easily suggest the crude form of 
the a priori theory attacked by Locke. Still more is this 
the case with other authors, such as Lord Herbert of 
Cherbury and Dr. Ralph Cudworth, whose works were in 
general circulation at the time when Locke was compos- 
ing his Essay, Lord Herbert, though indeed he acknowl- 
edges that "common notions" (the expression by which 
he designates a priori principles) require an object to 
elicit them into consciousness, seems invariably to regard 
them as ready-made ideas implanted in the human mind 
from its very origin. They are given by an independent 
faculty, Natural Instinct, which is to be distinguished from 
Internal Sense, External Sense, and Reasoning (" discur- 
sus"), the sources of our other ideas. They are to be 
found in every man, and universal consent is the main cri- 
terion by which they are to be discriminated. In fact, 
there can be no doubt that the dogma of Innate Ideas and 
Innate Principles, in the form attacked by Locke, was a 
natural, if not the legitimate, interpretation of much of the 
philosophical teaching of the time, and that it was prob- 
ably the form in which that teaching was popularly un- 
derstood. It lay, moreover, as Locke's phrase is, along 
the " common road," which was travelled by the majority 
of men who cared about speculative subjects at all, and 
from which it w#s novel, and therefore dangerous, to di- 
verge. 

The most effective, perhaps, of Locke's arguments 
against this doctrine is his challenge to the advocates of 
Innate Principles to produce them, and show what and 



vm.] ESSAY ON THE HUMAN UNDERSTANDING. 131 

how many they are. Did men find such innate proposi- 
tions stamped on their minds, nothing could be more easy 
than this. " There could be no more doubt about their 
number than there is about the number of our fingers; 
and 'tis like, then, every system would be ready to give 
them us by tale." Now " 'tis enough to make one suspect 
that the supposition of such innate principles is but an 
opinion taken up at random; since those who talk so 
confidently of them are so sparing to tell us which they 
are." (Bk. I., ch. iii., § 14.) The great majority, indeed, 
of those who maintain the existence of innate principles 
and ideas attempt no enumeration of them. Those who 
do attempt such an enumeration differ in the lists which 
they draw up, and, moreover, as Locke shows in the case 
of the five practical principles of Lord Herbert of Cher- 
bury, give no sufficient reason why many other proposi- 
tions, which they regard as secondary and derived, should 
not be admitted to the same rank with the so-called in- 
nate principles, which they assume to be primary and in- 
dependent. Locke is here treading on safer ground than 
in many of his other criticisms. The fact is that it is 
impossible clearly to discriminate between those proposi- 
tions which are axiomatic and those which are derived — 
or, in the language of the theory which Locke is combat- 
ing, between those which are innate and those which are 
adventitious. Race, temperament, mental capacity, habit, 
education, produce such differences between man and man 
that a proposition which to one man appears self-evident 
and unquestionable will by another be admitted only af- 
ter considerable hesitation, while a third will regard it as 
doubtful, or even false. Especially is this the case, as 
Locke does not fail to point out, with many ^( the princi- 
ples of religion and morals, which have now been received 



1B2 LOCKE. [chap. 

by so constant a tradition in most civilized nations that 
they have come to be regarded as independent of reason, 
and, if not " ingraven on the mind " from its birth, at least 
exempt from discussion and criticism. The circumstance, 
however, that they are not universally acknowledged shows 
that to mankind in general, at any rate, they are not axi- 
omatic, and that, however clear and convincing the reasons 
for them may be, at all events those reasons require to 
be stated. It was this determined and vigorous protest 
against multiplying assumptions and attempting to with- 
draw a vast mass of propositions, both speculative and 
practical, from the control and revision of reason, that, 
perhaps, constituted the most distinctive and valuable part 
of Locke's teaching. 

Having cleared from his path the theory of Innate 
Principles, Locke proceeds, in the Second Book, to inquire 
how the mind comes to be furnished with its knowledge. 
Availing himself of a metaphor which had been common- 
ly employed by the Stoics, but which reaches as far back 
as Aristotle and Plato, and even as JEschylus, he compares 
the mind to " white paper, void of all characters, without 
any ideas," and then asks: 

" Whence comes it by that vast store, which the busy and bound- 
less Fancy of Man has painted on it, with an almost endless variety ? 
Whence has it all the materials of Reason and Knowledge? To 
this I answer in one word, from Experience : In that all our knowl- 
edge is founded ; and from that it ultimately derives itself. Our 
observation employed either about external or sensible objects, or 
about the internal operations of our minds perceived and reflected 
on by our selves, is that which supplies our Understandings with all 
the materials of thinking. These two are the Fountains of Knowl- 
edge from which all the ideas we have, or can naturally have, do 
spring.'* 



Tin.] ESSAY ON THE HUMAN UNDERSTANDING. 133 

"First, our Senses, conversant about particular sensible objects, 
do convey into the mind several distinct perceptions of things, ac- 
cording to those various ways in which those objects do affect them. 
And thus we come by those ideas we have of Yellow, White, Heat, 
Cold, Soft, Hard, Bitter, Sweet, and all those which we call Sensible 
Qualities, which when I say the senses convey into the mind, I mean 
they from external objects convey into the mind what produces there 
those Perceptions. This great source of most of the Ideas we have, 
depending wholly upon our senses, and derived by them to the Un- 
derstanding, I call SENSATION." 

" Secondly, the other Fountain, from which Experience f urnisheth 
the Understanding with Ideas, is the Perception of the operations 
of our own minds within us, as it is employed about the ideas it has 
got; which operations, when the soul comes to reflect on and con- 
sider, do furnish the Understanding with another set of ideas which 
could not be had from things without; and such are Perception, 
Thinking, Doubting, Believing, Reasoning, Knowing, Willing, and all 
the different actings of our own minds, which we being conscious of, 
aivd observing in our selves, do from these receive into our Under- 
standings as distinct ideas as we do from bodies affecting our senses. 
TMs source of ideas every man has wholly in himself. And though 
it be not sense, as having nothing to do with external objects, yet it 
is very like it, and might properly enough be called Internal Sense. 
But as I call the other Sensation, so I call this REFLECTION, the 
ideas it affords being such only as the mind gets by reflecting on its 
own operations within itself. By Reflection, then, in the following 
part of this Discourse, I would be understood to mean that notice 
which the mind takes of its own operations and the manner of them, 
by reason whereof there come to be Ideas of these operations in the 
Understanding. These two, I say, namely, external material things, 
as the objects of Sensation, and the operations of our own minds 
within, as the objects of Reflection, are to me the only originals from 
whence all our ideas take their beginning. The term operations 
here I use in a large sense, as comprehending not barely the actions 
of the mind about its ideas, but some sort of passions arising some- 
times from them, such as is the satisfaction or uneasiness arising 
from any thought." 

" The Understanding seems to me not to have the least glimmer- 



134 LOCKE. [chap. 

ing of any ideas which it doth not receive from one of these two. 
External objects furnish the mind with the ideas of sensible quali- 
ties, which are all those different perceptions they produce in us ; 
and the mind furnishes the Understanding with ideas of its own op- 
erations." (Bk. II., ch. L, §§ 2-5.) 

In deriving our knowledge from two distinct sources, 
Sensation and Reflection, Locke is advancing a position 
altogether different from that of what is properly called 
the Sensationalist school of philosophers. Gassendi and 
Hobbes before him, Condillac and Helvetius after him, 
found the ultimate source of all our knowledge in the 
impressions of sense. The emphatic words of Hobbes, 
standing in the forefront of the Leviathan, are: — " The 
original of all the thoughts of men is that which we call 
Sense, for there is no conception in a man's mind which 
hath not at first, totally or by parts, been begotten upon 
the organs of sense." And Condillac, aiming at a theory 
still more simple, derives from sensations not only all our 
knowledge but all our faculties. " The other fountain," 
then, of Locke has, we must recollect, a peculiar signifi- 
cance as distinguishing his psychology from that of the 
sensationalist writers who preceded and who followed him. 
His theory of the origin of knowledge may fairly be call- 
ed an experiential, but it cannot with any truth be called a 
sensationalist theory. 

The rest of the Second Book of the Essay is mainly 
taken up with the attempt to enumerate our simple ideas 
of Sensation and Reflection, and to resolve into them our 
other ideas, however complex. To follow Locke into 
these details would be to re-write the Essay. I propose 
simply to direct the attention of the reader to a few sa- 
lient points. 

Of " Simple Ideas of Sensation," some " come into our 



viil] ESSAY ON THE HUMAN UNDERSTANDING. 135 

minds by one Sense only." Such are the various colours, 
sounds, tastes, and smells, Heat and Cold, and the sensa- 
tion of Resistance or Impenetrability, which Locke denom- 
inates Solidity. "The Ideas we get by more than one 
sense are of Space or Extension, Figure, Rest, and Mo- 
tion." 

The " Simple Ideas of Reflection," which the mind ac- 
quires, when " it turns its view inward upon itself, and 
observes its own actions about those ideas it has received 
from without," are mainly two, namely, Perception or 
Thinking, and Volition or Willing. 

" There be other simple ideas, which convey themselves 
into the mind by all the ways of Sensation and Reflection, 
namely, Pleasure or Delight, Pain or Uneasiness, Power, 
Existence, Unity. (Bk. II., ch. vii., § 1.) 

" These simple ideas, the materials of all our knowledge, are sug- 
gested and furnished to the mind only by those two ways above men- 
tioned, namely, Sensation and Reflection. When the Understanding 
is once stored with these simple ideas, it has the power to repeat, 
compare, and unite them, even to an almost infinite variety, and so 
can make at pleasure new complex ideas. But it is not in the power 
of the most exalted Wit or enlarged Understanding, by any quick- 
ness or variety of thoughts, to invent or frame one new simple idea 
in the mind, not taken in by the ways before mentioned. Nor can 
any force of the Understanding destroy those that are there : the do- 
minion of man, in this little world of his own understanding, being 
much-what the same as it is in the great world of visible things, 
wherein his power, however managed by art and skill, reaches no 
farther than to compound and divide the materials that are made to 
his hand, but can do nothing towards the making the least particle 
of new matter or destroying one atom of what is already in being. 
The same inability will every one find in himself who shall go about 
to fashion in his Understanding any simple idea not received in by 
his senses from external objects or by reflection From the operations 
of his own mind about them." (Bk. II., ch. ii., g 2.) 



136 LOCKE. [chap. 

In the reception of these simple ideas, Locke regards 
the mind as merely passive. It can no more refuse to 
have them, alter or blot them out, than a mirror can refuse 
to receive, alter, or obliterate the images reflected on it. 
The Understanding, before the entrance of simple ideas, is 
like a dark room, and external and internal sensation are 
the windows by which light is let in. But when the light 
has once penetrated into this dark recess, the Understand- 
ing has an almost unlimited power of modifying and 
transforming it. It can create complex ideas, and that in 
an infinite variety, out of its simple ideas, and this it does 
chiefly by combining, comparing, and separating them. 

" This shows man's power, and its way of operation, to be much 
what the same in the material and intellectual world. For the ma- 
terials in both being such as he has no power over, either to make 
or destroy, all that man can do is either to unite them together, or 
to set them by one another, or wholly separate them." (Bk. II., ch. 
xii., § 1.) 

The complex ideas are classified under three heads, 
modes, which may be either simple or mixed, substances, 
and relations. Here, however, my analysis must stop, and 
I must content myself with giving a few examples of the 
manner in which Locke attempts to resolve " complex 
ideas " into " simple " ones. 

The idea of Infinity, to take one of his most celebrated 
resolutions, is merely a simple mode of Quantity, as Im- 
mensity is a simple mode of Space, and Eternity of Dura- 
tion. All alike are negative ideas, arising whenever we 
allow the mind "an endless progression of thought," with- 
out any effort to arrest it. " How often soever " a man 
doubles an unit of space, be it a " mile, or diameter of the 
earth, or of the Orbis Magnus" or any otherwise multi- 



tiil] . ESSAY ON THE HUMAN UNDERSTANDING. 137 

pMes it, " he finds that, after he has continued this doub- 
lino; in his thoughts and enlarged his idea as much as he 
pleases, he lias no more reason to stop, nor is one jot near- 
er the end of such addition, than he was at first setting 
out ; the power of enlarging his idea of Space by farther 
additions remaining still the same, he hence takes idea of 
infinite space." (Bk. II., ch. xvii., § 3.) 

With the idea of " Substance " Locke is fairly baffled. 
If we examine our idea of a horse, a man, a piece of gold, 
&c, we are able to resolve it into a number of simple ideas, 
such as extension, figure, solidity, weight, colour, etc., co- 
existing together. But, according to Locke, who, in this 
respect, was merely following in the track of the generally 
received philosophy of his time, there is, in addition to all 
these qualities, a substratum in which they inhere, or, tc 
use his own language, " wherein they do subsist, and from 
which they do result." Now of the various qualities we 
can form a clear idea and give a more or less intelligible 
account. But can we form a clear idea or give an intel- 
ligible account of the substratum ? Locke here is bold 
enough to break off from the orthodox doctrine of the 
time, and confess candidly that we cannot. The idea of 
this Substratum or Substance is a " confused idea of some- 
thing to which the qualities belong, and in which they sub- 
sist." The name Substance denotes a Support, " though 
it be certain we have no clear or distinct idea of that thing 
we suppose a support." 

" So that if any one will examine himself concerning his notion of 
pure Substance in general, he will find he has no other idea of it at 
all but only a -supposition of he knows not what Support of such 
qualities which are capable of producing simple ideas in us ; which 
qualities are commonly called Accidents. If any one should be ask- 
ed what is the subject wherein Colour or Weight inheres, he would 

K 7 



138 LOCKE. '[chap. 

have nothing to say but the solid extended parts. And if he were 
demanded what is it that Solidity and Extension inhere in, he would 
not be in a much better case than the Indian who, saying that the 
world was supported by a great elephant, was asked what the elephant 
rested on? To which his answer was, a great tortoise. But, being 
again pressed to know what gave support to the broad-backed tor- 
toise, replied, something, he knew not what. And thus here, as in 
all other cases, where we use words without having clear and dis- 
tinct ideas, we talk like children; who, being questioned what such 
a thing is, which they know not, readily give this satisfactory answer, 
That it is something ; which in truth signifies no more, when so used, 
either by children or men, but that they know not what, and that the 
thing they pretend to know and talk of is what they have no dis- 
tinct idea of at all, and so are perfectly ignorant of it and in the 
dark." (Bk. II, ch. xxiii., § 2.) 

No wonder that the next step in philosophy was to get 
rid altogether of this " something, we know not what." 
For, if we know not what it is, how do we know that it 
exists, and is not a mere fiction of the Schools? This 
step was taken by Berkeley, as respects matter, and by 
Hume the same negative criticism which Berkeley confines 
to matter was boldly, and, as it seems to me, far less suc- 
cessfully and legitimately extended to mind. Indeed, 
were it not for his express assurance to the contrary, we 
should often be tempted to think that Locke himself re- 
garded this distinction of Substance and Accident, so far, 
at least, as it affects Matter and its attributes, as untenable, 
and was anxious to insinuate a doubt as to the very exist- 
ence of the " unknown somewhat." 

In this chapter, Locke maintains that there is no more 
difficulty, if indeed so much, in the notion of immaterial 
spirit as of body. " Our idea of Body, as I think, is an 
extended solid substance, capable of communicating motion 
by impulse ; and our idea of our Soul, as an immaterial 



viil] ESSAY ON THE HUMAN UNDERSTANDING. 139 

Spirit, is of a substance that thinks, and has a power of 
exciting motion in body by Will or Thought." • (§ 22.) 
Now, it is " no more a contradiction that Thinking should 
exist separate and independent from Solidity, than it is a 
contradiction that Solidity should exist separate and inde- 
pendent from Thinking, they being both but simple ideas 
independent one from another. And, having as clear and 
distinct ideas in us of Thinking as of Solidity, I know not 
why w r e may not as well allow a thinking thing without 
solidity, that is immaterial, to exist, as a solid thing with- 
out thinking, that is matter, to exist; especially since it is 
no harder to conceive how Thinking should exist without 
Matter, than how Matter should think." (§ 32.) 

In the Fourth Book (ch. iii., § 6), however, he gave 
great scandal by suggesting the possibility that Matter 
might think, that it was not much more repugnant to our 
conceptions that God might, if he pleased, " superadd to 
Matter a Faculty of Thinking, than that he should su- 
peradd to it another substance with a faculty of think- 
ing." At the same time, he regarded it as no less than a 
contradiction to suppose that Matter, " w T hich is evident- 
ly in its own nature void of sense and thought," should 
be the " eternal first thinking Being," or God Himself ; 
and, in his First Letter to the Bishop of Worcester, he 
grants that in us (as distinguished from the lower ani- 
mals) it is in the highest degree probable that the u think- 
ing substance" is immaterial. Materialism, therefore, as 
ordinarily understood, is certainly no part of Locke's 
system. 

In discussing the idea of Substance, Locke seems gen- 
erally to be thinking more of Matter than Mind. But, in 
an early part of the Essay (Bk. II., ch. xiii., § 18), ho very 
rightly bogs those who talk so much of Substance "to 



140 LOCKE. [chap. 

consider whether applying it, as they do, to the infinite 
incomprehensible God, to finite Spirit, and to Body, it be 
in the same sense, and whether it stands for the same idea, 
when each of those three so different beings are called 
Substances." As applied respectively to Matter and to 
Mind (whether finite or infinite), it appears to me that the 
word Substance assumes a very different meaning, and 
that the absurdities which it is possible to fix on the dis- 
tinction between Matter and its attributes by no means 
extend to the distinction between Mind and its operations. 
For an union of certain forces or powers affecting our 
organisms in certain ways seems to exhaust our concep- 
tion of external objects (the notion of externality, I con- 
ceive, being quite independent of that of the Substrate 
" matter"), but no similar enumeration of mental acts and 
feelings seems adequately to take the place of that " Self," 
or " I," of which we regard these as merely phases and 
modifications. It would much conduce to clearness in 
philosophical discussions if, at least amongst those who 
admit the dualism of matter and mind, the word Sub- 
stance, whenever applied to incorporeal objects, were re- 
placed by the word Mind, and, whenever applied to corpo- 
real objects, by the word Matter. 

The Second Book closes, in the Fourth and subsequent 
editions, with a short but very interesting Chapter on the 
"Association of Ideas." The student of Mental Philos- 
ophy will find it instructive to compare this Chapter with 
the previous account' given by Hobbes {Human Nature, 
ch. iv. ; Leviathan, Pt. I., ch. iii.), and the subsequent ac- 
count given by Hume {Human Nature, Pt. I., § 4 ; Essays 
on Human Understanding, § 3), of the same phenomena. 
Locke appears to have been the first author to use the 



viii.] ESSAY ON THE HUMAN UNDERSTANDING. 141 

exact 1 expression "Association of Ideas," and it is curious 
to find in this chapter (§ 5) the word " inseparable," so 
familiar to the readers of recent works on psychology, al- 
ready applied to designate certain kinds of association. 
Some ideas, indeed, have, he says, a natural correspondence, 
but others, that u in themselves are not at all of kin," 
"come to be so united in some men's minds that one no 
sooner at any time comes into the understanding than the 
whole Gang, always inseparable, show themselves together." 
The following passage on what may be called the asso- 
ciations of antipathy affords a good instance of Locke's 
power of homely and apposite illustration : 

" Many children imputing the pain they endured at school to their 
books they were corrected for, so join those ideas together, that a 
book becomes their aversion, and they are never reconciled to the 
study and use of them all their lives after ; and thus reading be- 
comes a torment to them, which otherwise possibly they might have 
made the great pleasure of their lives. There are rooms convenient 
enough, that some men cannot study in, and fashions of vessels, 
which though never so clean and commodious, they cannot drink out 
of, and that by reason of some accidental ideas which are annexed 
to them and make them offensive. And who is there that hath not 
observed some man to flag at the appearance or in the company of 
some certain person not otherwise superior to him, but because, hav- 
ing once on some occasion got the ascendant, the idea of authority 
and distance goes along with that of the person, and he that has 
been thus subjected is not able to separate them." 

Had Locke's Essay ended with the Second Book, we 
should hardly have detected in it any incompleteness. It 

1 Sir W. Hamilton refers to La Chambre (Si/stemc de VAme: Paris, 
1664) as having anticipated Locke in the use of this expression. In 
Liv. IV., ch. ii., art. 9, La Chambre speaks of " 1' Union et la Liaison 
des Images," but I cannot find that he approaches any nearer to the 
now established phraseology. 



142 " LOCKE. [chap. 

might have been regarded as an analytical work on the 
nature and origin of our ideas, or, in other words, on the 
elements of our knowledge. There are, however, a third 
and fourth book — the former treating u Of Words," the 
latter " Of Knowledge and Opinion." Locke's notion ap- 
pears to have been that, after treating of " Ideas," main- 
ly as regarded in themselves, it was desirable to consider 
them as combined in Judgments or Propositions, and to 
estimate the various degrees of assent which we give or 
ought to give to such judgments, when formed. The 
Fourth Book thus, to a certain extent, takes the place, and 
was probably designed to take the place, of the Logic of 
the Schools. " But," to quote Locke's own language in 
the Abstract of the Essay, u when I came a little nearer to 
consider the nature and manner of human knowledge, I 
found it had so much to do with propositions, and that 
words, either by custom or necessity, were so mixed with 
it, that it was impossible to discourse of knowledge with 
that clearness we should, without saying something first 
of words and language." 

The last three Chapters of the Third Book are remark- 
able for their sound sense, and may still be read with the 
greatest advantage by all who wish to be put on their 
guard against the delusions produced by misleading or in- 
adequate language — those "Idola Fori" which Bacon de- 
scribes as the most troublesome of the phantoms which 
beset the mind in its search for truth. Some of the best 
and freshest of Locke's thoughts, indeed, are to be found 
in this book, and especially in the less technical parts of it. 

The Fourth Book, under the head of Knowledge, treats 
of a great variety of interesting topics : of the nature of 
knowledge, its degrees, its extent, and reality ; of the truth 
and certainty of Universal Propositions ; of the logical 



vili.] ESSAY ON THE HUMAN UNDERSTANDING. 143 

axioms, or laws of thought; of the evidence for the ex- 
istence of a God ; of Faith and Reason ; of the Degrees 
of Assent ; of Enthusiasm ; of Error. Into these attract- 
ive regions it is impossible that I can follow my author, 
but the reader who wishes to see examples of Locke's 
strong practical sense and, at the same time, to understand 
the popularity so soon and so constantly accorded to the 
Essay, should make acquaintance at least with the four 
chapters last named. 

From the task of description I now pass to that of 
criticism, though this must be confined within still narrow- 
er limits than the former, and indeed, amongst the multi- 
plicity of subjects which invite attention, I must confine 
myself to one only : the account of the ultimate origin 
of our knowledge, which forms the main subject of the 
Essay. 

Locke, as we have seen, derived all our knowledge from 
Experience. But experience, with him, was simply the 
experience of the individual. In order to acquire this ex- 
perience, it was indeed necessary that we should have cer- 
tain "inherent faculties." But of these "faculties" he 
gives no other account than that God has " furnished " or 
"endued" us with them. Thus, the Deus ex machina was 
as much an acknowledged necessity in the philosophy of 
Locke, and was, in fact, almost as frequently invoked, as 
in that of his antagonists. Is there any natural account 
to be given of the way in which we come to have these 
" faculties," of the extraordinary facility we possess of ac- 
quiring simple and forming complex ideas, is a question 
which he appears never to have put to himself. Inquiries 
of this kind, however, we must recollect, were foreign to 
the men of his generation, and, in fact, have only recently 



144 LOCKE. [chap. 

become a recognized branch of mental philosophy. Hence 
it; was that his system left so much unexplained. Not 
only the very circumstance that we have "inherent facul- 
ties " at all, but the wide differences of natural capacity 
which we observe between one man or race and another 
and the very early period at which there spring up in the 
mind such notions as those of space, time, equality, causal- 
ity, and the like, are amongst the many difficulties which 
Locke's theory, in its bare and unqualified form, fails sat- 
isfactorily to answer. It was thus comparatively easy for 
Kant to show that the problem of the origin of knowl- 
edge could not be left where Locke had left it ; that our 
a posteriori experiences presuppose and are only intelligi- 
ble through certain a priori perceptions and conceptions 
which the mind itself imposes upon them ; or, to use more 
accurate language, through certain a priori elements in our 
perceptions and conceptions, which the mind contributes 
from itself. Thus the child appears, as soon as it is capa- 
ble of recognizing any source of its impressions, to regard 
an object as situated in space, an event as happening in 
time, circumstances which have occurred together as likely 
to occur together again. But Kant's own account was 
defective in leaving this a priori element of our knowl- 
edge unexplained, or, at least, in attempting no explana- 
tion of it. The mind, according to him, is possessed of 
certain Forms and Categories, which shape and co-ordi- 
nate the impressions received from the external world, 
being as necessary to the acquisition of experience, as ex- 
perience is necessary to eliciting them into consciousness. 
But here his analysis ends. He does not ask how the 
mind comes to be possessed of these Forms and Catego- 
ries, nor does he satisfactorily determine the precise re- 
lation in which they stand to the empirical elements of 



viii.] ESSAY ON THE HUMAN UNDERSTANDING. 145 

knowledge. When studying his philosophy, we seem in- 
deed to be once more xeceding to the mysterious region 
of Innate Ideas. But the mystery is removed at least 
several stages back, if we apply to the solution of these 
mental problems the principle of Heredity, which has re- 
cently been found so potent in clearing up many of the 
difficulties connected with external nature. What are the 
" Innate Ideas " of the older philosophers, or the Forms 
and Categories of Kant, but certain tendencies of the mind 
to group phenomena, the " fleeting objects of sense," un- 
der certain relations and regard them under certain as- 
pects ? And why should these tendencies be accounted 
for in any other way than that by which we are accus- 
tomed to account for the tendency of an animal or plant, 
belonging to 'any particular species, to exhibit, as it devel- 
opes, the physical characteristics of the species to which 
it belongs ? The existence of the various mental tenden- 
cies and aptitudes, so far as the individual is concerned, 
is, in fact, to be explained by the principle of hereditary 
transmission. But how have these tendencies and apti- 
tudes come to be formed in the race ? The most scientific 
answer is that which, following the analogy of the theory 
now so widely admitted with respect to the physical struct- 
ure of animals and plants, assigns their formation to the 
continuous operation, through a long series of ages, of 
causes acting uniformly, or almost uniformly, in the same 
direction — in one word, of Evolution. This explanation 
may have its difficulties, but it is at any rate an attempt 
at a natural explanation where no other such attempt 
exists, and it has the merit of falling in with the expla- 
nations of corresponding phenomena now most generally 
accepted amongst scientific men in other departments of 
knowledge. 
1* 



146 LOCKE. [chap. 

According to this theory, there is both an a priori and 
an a posteriori element in our knowledge, or, to speak 
more accurately, there are both a priori and a posteriori 
conditions of our knowing, the a posteriori condition be- 
ing, as in all systems, individual experience, the a priori 
condition being inherited mental aptitudes, which, as a rule, 
become more and more marked and persistent with each 
successive transmission. Now Locke lays stress simply 
upon the a posteriori condition, though he recognizes a 
certain kind of a priori condition in our " natural facul- 
ties," and the simple ideas furnished by reflecting on their 
operations. The very important condition, however, of 
inherited aptitudes facilitating the formation of certain 
general conceptions concurrently, or almost concurrently, 
with the presentation of individual experiences, did not oc- 
cur to him as an element in the solution of the problem 
he had undertaken to answer, nor, in that stage of specu- 
lation, could it well have done so. His peculiar contribu- 
tion to the task of solving this question consisted in his 
skilful and popular delineation of the a posteriori element 
in knowledge, and in his masterly exposure of the insuffi- 
ciency of the account of the a priori element, as then com- 
monly given. Locke's own theory was afterwards strain- 
ed by Hume and Hartley, and still more by his professed 
followers in France, such as Condillac and Helvetius, till 
at last, in the opinion of most competent judges, it snap- 
ped asunder. Then, under the massive, though often par- 
tial and obscure, treatment of Kant, came the rehabilita- 
tion of the a priori side of knowledge. In recent times, 
mainly by aid of the light thrown on it from other branch- 
es of inquiry, a more thorough and scientific treatment of 
psychology has done much, as I conceive, towards com- 
pleting and reconciling the two divergent theories which 



viii.] ESSAY ON THE HUMAN" UNDERSTANDING. 147 

at one time seemed hopelessly to divide the world of phil- 
osophic thinkers. And yet, as it appears to me, the ulti- 
mate mystery which surrounds the beginnings of intellect- 
ual life on the globe has by no means been removed. 

As closely connected with this general criticism of 
Locke's system, or rather as presenting the defects just 
criticised under another form, I may notice the tendency 
of the Essay to bring into undue prominence the passive 
receptivities of the Mind, and to ignore its activity and 
spontaneity. The metaphor of the tabula rasa, the sheet 
of kt white paper, 1 ' once admitted, exercises a warping in- 
fluence over the whole work. The author is so busied 
with the variety of impressions from without, that he 
seems sometimes almost to ignore the reaction of the 
mind from within. And yet this one-sideness of Locke's 
conception of mind may easily be exaggerated. "When 
the Understanding is once stored with simple ideas, it 
has the power to repeat, compare, and unite them, even 
to an almost infinite variety, and so can make at pleasure 
new complex ideas." (Bk. II., ch. ii., § 2.) Moreover, 
amongst the simple ideas themselves are the ideas of Re- 
flection, " being such as the mind gets by reflecting on its 
own operations." The system, in fact, assumes an almost 
ceaseless activity of mind, after the simple ideas of sensa- 
tion have once entered it. But where it fails is in not 
recognizing that mental reaction which is essential to the 
formation of even the simple ideas of sensation themselves, 
as well as that spontaneous activity of mind which often 
seems to assert itself independently of the application of 
any stimulus from without. Here again a more scientific 
psychology than was possible in Locke's day comes to 
our aid, and shows, as is done by Mr. Bain and other 
recent writers, that the nerves, stored with energy, often 



148 LOCKE. [chap. 

discharge themselves of their own accord, and that move- 
ment is at least as much an original factor in animal life 
as is sensation, while sometimes it even precedes it in 
time. Had the constant interaction of mental activity 
and mental receptivity, producing a compound in which 
it is often almost impossible to disentangle the elements, 
been duly recognized by Locke, it would certainly have 
made his philosophy less simple, but it would have made 
it more true to facts. Physiology, however, was in his 
days in far too backward a state itself to throw much 
light upon Psychology. And the reaction against the 
prevailing doctrine of Innate Ideas naturally led to a sys- 
tem in which the influences of external circumstances, of 
education and habit, were exaggerated at the expense of 
the native powers, or as they might more appropriately be 
called the inherited aptitudes, and the spontaneous activity 
of the mind. 

Here, tempting as it is to follow my author along the 
many tracks of psychological, metaphysical, and logical 
discussion which he always pursues with sagacity, candour, 
and good sense, if not always with the consistency and 
profundity which we should require from later writers, 
my criticism must necessarily end. 

Before, however, finally dismissing the Essay, I must 
pause to ask what was the main work in the history of 
philosophy and thought which it accomplished. Many of 
its individual doctrines, doubtless, could not now be de- 
fended against the attacks of hostile criticism, and some 
even of those which are true in the main, are inadequate 
or one-sided. But its excellence lies in its tone, its lan- 
guage, its method, its general drift, its multiplicity of 
topics, the direction which it gave to the thoughts and 
studies of reflecting men for many generations subsequent 



viii.] ESSAY OX THE HUMAN UNDERSTANDING. 149 

to its appearance. Of the tone of candour and open- 
mindedness which pervades it, of the unscholastic and 
agreeable form in which it is written, and of the great 
variety of interesting topics which it starts, I have spoken 
already. Its method, though not absolutely new, even in 
modern times, for it is at least, to some extent, the method 
of Descartes, if not, in a smaller degree, of Hobbes and 
Gassendi, was still not common at the time of its appear- 
ance. Instead of stating a series of preconceived opin- 
ions, or of dogmas borrowed from some dominant school, 
in a systematic form, Locke sets to w T ork to examine the 
structure of his own mind, and to analyze into their ele- 
ments the ideas which he finds there. This, the introspec- 
tive method, as it has been called, though undoubtedly im- 
perfect, for it requires to be supplemented by the study 
of the minds of other men, if not of the lower animals, as 
made known by their acts, and words, and history, is yet a 
great advance on the purely a priori, and often fanciful, 
methods which preceded it. Nor do w T e fail to find in the 
Essay some employment of that comparative method to 
which I have just alluded: witness the constant references 
to children and savages in the first book, and the stress 
which is laid on the variety of moral sentiment existing 
amongst mankind. This inductive treatment of philosoph- 
ical problems, mainly introspective, but in some measure 
also comparative, which was extremely rare in Locke's 
time, became almost universal afterwards. Closely con- 
nected with the method of the book is its general purport. 
By turning the mind inwards upon itself, and u making 
it its own object," Locke surmises that all its ideas come 
either from without or from experience of its own opera- 
tions. He finds, on examination and analysis, no ideas 
which cannot be referred to one or other of these two 



150 LOCKE. [chap. 

sources. The single word " experience " includes them 
both, and furnishes us with a good expression for mark- 
ing the general drift of his philosophy. It was pre-emi- 
nently a philosophy of experience, both in its method and 
in its results. It accepts nothing on authority, no fore- 
gone conclusions, no data from other sciences. It digs, 
as it were, into the mind, detaches the ore, analyzes it, and 
asks how the various constituents came there. The analyt- 
ical and psychological direction thus given to philosophy 
by Locke was followed by most of the philosophical writ- 
ers of the eighteenth century. However divergent in 
other respects, Hume and Berkeley, Hartley and Reid, the 
French Sensationalists, Kant, all commence their investiga- 
tions by inquiring into the constitution, the capacities, and 
the limits of the Human Mind. Nor can any system of 
speculation be constructed on a sound basis which has 
neglected to dig about the foundations of human knowl- 
edge, to ascertain what our thoughts can and what they 
cannot compass, and what are the varying degrees of as- 
surance with which the various classes of propositions may 
be accepted by us. Two cautions, indeed, are necessary 
in applying this procedure. We must never forget that 
the mind is constantly in contact with external nature, 
and that therefore a constant action and reaction is taking 
place between them ; and we must never omit to base our 
inductions on an examination of other minds as well as 
our own, bringing into the account, as far as possible, every 
type and grade of mental development. 

It was not, however, only its general spirit and direction 
which Locke impressed on the philosophy of the eighteenth 
century. He may almost be said to have recreated that 
philosophy. There is hardly a single French or English 
writer (and we may add Kant) down to the time of Dugald 



viil] ESSAY ON THE HUMAN UNDERSTANDING. 151 

Stewart, or even of Cousin, Hamilton, and J. S. Mill, who 
does not profess either to develope Locke's system, or to 
supplement, or to criticise it. Followers, antagonists, and 
critics alike seem to assume on the part of the reader a 
knowledge of the Essay on the Human Understanding, 
and to make that the starting-point of their own specula- 
tions. The office which Bacon assigns to himself with 
reference to knowledge generally might well have been 
claimed by Locke with reference to the science of mind. 
Both of them did far more than merely play the part of 
a herald, but of both alike it was emphatically true that 
they "rang the bell to call the other wits together." 



CHAPTER IX. 

locke's opinions on religion and morals, and his 
theological writings. 

In the Essay on the Human Understanding r , Bk. IV., 
ch. x., Locke attempts to prove the existence of a God, 
which, though God has given us no innate idea of Him- 
self, he regards as " the most obvious truth that reason dis- 
cerns," and as resting on evidence equal to mathematical 
certainty. Morality is, he maintains, entirely based upon 
the Will of God. If there were no God, there would, for 
him, be no morality, and this is the reason of his denying 
to Atheists the protection of the State. In the chapter on 
the Existence of God he says expressly that this truth is so 
fundamental that "all genuine morality depends thereon," 
and almost at the beginning of the Essay (Bk. I., ch. iii., 
§ 6), while acknowledging that " several moral rules may 
receive from mankind a very general approbation, without 
either knowing or admitting the true ground of morality," 
he maintains that such true ground " can only be the Will 
and Law of a God, who sees men in the dark, has in his 
hand rewards and punishments, and power enough to call 
to account the proudest offender." Again, " the Rule pre- 
scribed by God is the true and only measure of Virtue." 
But how are we to ascertain this rule? " God has by an 
inseparable connexion joined Virtue and Public Happiness 



chap, ix.] OPINIONS ON RELIGION AND MORALS. 158 

together," and hence we have only to ascertain, by the use 
of the natural reason, what on the whole conduces most to 
the public welfare, in order to know the Divine Will. The 
rules, when arrived at, have a " moral and eternal obliga- 
tion," and are enforced by fear of " the Hell God has or- 
dained for the punishment of those that transgress them." 

This form of Utilitarianism, resting on a theological 
basis and enforced by theological sanctions, is precisely 
that which afterwards became so popular and excited so 
much attention, when adopted in the well-known work of 
Paley. According to this system, we do what is right sim- 
ply because God commands it, and because He will punish 
us if we disobey His orders. u By the fault is the rod, and 
with the transgression a fire ready to punish it." But, not- 
withstanding the divine origin and the divine sanction of 
morality, its measure and test are purely human. Each man 
is required by the Law of God to do all the good and pre- 
vent all the evil that he can, and, as good and evil are re- 
solved into pleasure and pain, the ultimate test of virtue 
or moral conduct comes to be its conduciveness to promote 
the pleasures and avert the pains of mankind. Be nth am, 
whose ethical system, it may be noticed, differed mainly 
from that of Locke and Paley by not being based on a 
theological foundation, extends the scope of morality to all 
sentient creatures, capable of pleasure and pain. 

I shall not here criticise Locke's theory so far as it is 
common to other utilitarian systems of ethics, but shall 
simply content myself with pointing out that its influence 
on subsequent writers has seldom, if ever, been sufficient lv 
recognized. The theological foundation, however, on which 
it rests, and which is peculiar among the more prominent 
moralists of modern times to Locke and Paley, is <>|u>n to 
an objection so grave and obvious, that it is curious it did 



154 LOCKE. [chap. 

not occur to the authors themselves. If what is right and 
wrong, good and evil, depends solely on the Will of God, 
how can we speak of God Himself as good ? Goodness, 
as one of the Divine attributes, would then simply mean 
the conformity of God to His own Will. An elder con- 
temporary of Locke, Ralph Cudworth, so clearly saw the 
difficulties and contradictions involved in this view of the 
nature and origin of morality, that he devotes a consider- 
able portion of his Treatise concerning Eternal and Im- 
mutable Morality (which, however, was not published till 
1731) to its refutation. And, possibly, Locke himself may 
have been conscious of some inconsistency between this 
theory (the ordinary one amongst the vulgar, though a 
comparatively rare one amongst philosophers) and the at- 
tribution of goodness to God. For, in his chapter on our 
knowledge of the existence of God, he never expressly 
mentions the attribute of goodness as pertaining to the 
Divine Nature, though in other parts of the Essay it must 
be acknowledged that he incidentally does so. Moralists 
and philosophical theologians have generally escaped the 
difficulties of Locke's theory by making right or moral 
goodness depend not on the Will but on the Nature of 
God, or else by regarding it as an ultimate fact, incapable 
of explanation, or, lastly, by resolving it into the idea of 
happiness or pleasure, which itself is then regarded as an 
ultimate fact in the constitution of sentient beings. 

Two other characteristic doctrines of Locke's ethical 
system ought here to be mentioned, though it is impos- 
sible, within the space at my command, to discuss them. 
One is that morality is a science capable of demonstration. 
The other, which is elaborately set out in the chapter on 
Power in the Essay (Bk. II., ch. xxi.), is that, though the 
Agent is free to act as he wills, the Will itself is invariably 



ix.] OPINIONS ON RELIGION AND MORALS. 155 

determined by motives. This solution of the well-worn 
controversy on the Freedom of the Will is almost identical 
with that offered by Hobbes before and by Hume after- 
wards, and is usually known as Determinism. 

We have seen that the main sanctions of morality, with 
Locke, are the rewards and punishments of a future state. 
But how are we assured of future existence? Only by 
Revelation. "Good and wise men," indeed, "have always 
been willing to believe that the soul was immortal ;" but 
" though the Light of Nature gave some obscure glimmer- 
ing, some uncertain hopes of a future state, yet Human 
Reason could attain to no clearness, no certainty about it, 
but it was Jesus Christ alone who brought life and immor- 
tality to light through the gospel." (Third Letter to the 
Bp. of Worcester.) But if the main sanctions of morali- 
ty are those of a future state, and if it is Christians alone 
who feel anything approaching to an assurance of such a 
state, surely morality must come with somewhat weak cre- 
dentials to the rest of mankind. And Locke doubtless 
believed this to be the case. But then, if this be so, 
Christians ought to be prepared to tolerate a much lower 
morality than their own in dealing with men of other 
faiths — one of the many inconvenient consequences which 
result from founding morality on a theological basis. 

Under the head of Locke's theological writings may be 
included the Treatise on the Reasonableness of Christiani- 
ty with the two Vindications of it — the Essays on Tolera- 
tion, and the Commentaries on some of the Epistles of St. 
Paul. The Reasonableness of Christianity was published 
in 1695, and may be taken as expressing Locke's most 
matured opinions on the questions of which it treats, 
though, in reading it, we must always bear in mind the 



156 LOCKE. [chap. 

caution and reticence which any writer of that time who 
diverged from the strict path of orthodoxy was obliged to 
observe. There can be no doubt that his object in this 
work w T as to commend what he regarded as the funda- 
mental truths of Christianity to the attention of reflecting 
men, and to vindicate to the Christian religion what he 
conceived to be its legitimate influence over mankind. 
But, in trying to effect this his main object, he seems also 
to have wished to correct what he regarded as certain 
popular errors, and to bring back Christianity to the norm 
of the Scriptures, instead of implicitly following the Fa- 
thers, the Councils, and the received theology of the 
Churches and the Schools. He attempted, he tells us, to 
clear his mind of all preconceived notions, and, following 
the lead of the Scriptures, of which he assumed the infal- 
libility, to see whither they would lead him. We may 
certainly trust his own assertion that he had no thoughts 
of writing in the interest of any particular party, though, 
at the same time, it was evidently his aim to extract from 
the Scriptures a theory as much as possible in accordance 
with the requirements of human reason, or, in other words, 
to reconcile the divine light with the natural light of man. 
The main results at which he arrived may be stated very 
briefly, as follows. Adam had been created immortal, but, 
by falling from the state of perfect obedience, "he lost 
paradise, wherein was tranquillity and the tree of life; that 
is, he lost bliss and immortality. " " In Adam all die," 
and hence all his descendants are mortal. But this sen- 
tence is to be taken in its literal sense, and not in the sig- 
nification that " every one descended of him deserves end- 
less torment in hell-fire." For it seems "a strange way of 
understanding a law, which requires the plainest and di- 
rectest words, that by death should be meant eternal life 



ix.] THEOLOGICAL WRITINGS. 157 

in misery." Much less can death be interpreted as a ne- 
cessity of continual sinning. " Can the righteous God be 
supposed, as a punishment of our sin, wherewith He is 
displeased, to put man under the necessity of sinning con- 
tinually, and so multiplying the provocation?" Here it 
will be seen Locke strikes at the root of the doctrines of 
the taint and guilt of original sin, doctrines which had 
long been stoutly opposed by the Arminians or Remon- 
strants with whom he had associated in Holland. But 
though it would have been an injustice to condemn men, 
for the fault of another, to a state of misery " worse than 
non-being," it was no wrong to deprive them of that to 
w/jich they had no right, the exceptional condition of im- 
mortality. Adam's sin, then, subjected all men to death. 
But in Christ they have again been made alive, and " the 
life which Jesus Christ restores to all men is that life 
which they receive again at the resurrection." Now the 
conditions of our obtaining this gift are faith and repent- 
ance. But repentance implies the doing works meet for 
repentance ; that is to say, leading a good life. And faith 
implies a belief not only in the one invisible, eternal, om- 
nipotent God, but also in Jesus as the Messiah, who was 
born of a virgin, rose again from the grave, and ascended 
into heaven. When Christ came on earth, the minds of 
men had become so far blinded by sense and lust and su- 
perstition that it required some visible and unmistakable 
assertion of God's majesty and goodness to bring them 
back to true notions of Him and of the Divine Law which 
He had set them. "Reason, speaking ever so clearly to 
the wise and virtuous, had never authority enough to pre- 
vail on the multitude." For the multitude were under the 
dominion of the priests, and the "priests every where, to 
secure their empire, had excluded reason from having any- 



158 LOCKE. [chap. 

thing to do in religion." " In this state of darkness and 
error, in reference to the 'true God,' our Saviour found 
the world. But the clear revelation he brought with 
him dissipated this darkness, made the ' one invisible true 
God' known to the world; and that with such evidence 
and energy, that polytheism and idolatry have nowhere 
been able to withstand it." And, as he revealed to man- 
kind a clear knowledge of the one true God, so also he 
revealed to them a clear knowledge of their duty, which 
was equally wanting. 

" Natural religion, in its full extent, was nowhere that I know 
taken care of by the force of natural reason. It should seem, by 
the little that has hitherto been done in it, that it is too hard a task 
for unassisted reason to establish morality in all its parts, upon its 
true foundation, with a clear and convincing light. And it is at least 
a surer and shorter way to the apprehensions of the vulgar and mass 
of mankind, that one manifestly sent from God, and coming with 
visible authority from him, should, as a king and law -maker, tell 
them their duties and require their obedience, than leave it to the 
long and sometimes intricate deductions of reason to be made out 
to them. Such trains of reasoning the greater part of mankind 
have neither leisure to weigh, nor, for want of education and use, 
skill to judge of . . . . You may as soon hope to have all the day- 
labourers and tradesmen, the spinsters and dairy -maids, perfect 
mathematicians, as to have them perfect in ethics this way. Hear- 
ing plain commands is the sure and only course to bring them to 
obedience and practice. The greater part cannot learn, and there- 
fore they must believe." 

It is true that reason quickly apprehends and approves 
of these truths, when once delivered, but " native and orig- 
inal truth is not so easily wrought out of the mine as we, 
who have it delivered already dug and fashioned into our 
hands, are apt to imagine ;" moreover, " experience shows 
that the knowledge of morality by mere natural light 



IX.] THEOLOGICAL WRITINGS. 159 

(how agreeable soever it be to it) makes but a slow prog- 
ress, and little advance in the world." 

The evidence of Christ's mission is to be found in the 
miracles, the occurrence and the divine origin of which 
Locke, both here and in the paper on Miracles published 
among his Posthumous Works, appears to have thought 
it impossible to gainsay. " The miracles he did were so 
ordered by the divine providence and wisdom, that they 
never were nor could be denied by any of the enemies 
or opposers of Christianity." And " this plain matter of 
fact beino- granted, the truth of our Saviour's doctrine and 
mission unavoidably follows." But once acknowledge the 
truth of Christ's mission, and the rule of life is evident. 
" To one who is once persuaded that Jesus Christ was 
sent by God to be a King, and a Saviour of those who do 
believe in him, all his commands become principles ; there 
needs no other proof for the truth of what ho says, but 
that he said it. And then there needs no more, but to 
read the inspired books, to be instructed ; all the duties 
of morality lie there clear, and plain, and easy to be un- 
derstood." 

This, then, is Locke's scheme of a plain and reasonable 
Christianity. " These are articles that the labouring and 
illiterate man may comprehend. This is a religion suit- 
ed to vulgar capacities, and the state of mankind in this 
world, destined to labour and travail." " The writers and 
wranglers in religion," indeed, " fill it with niceties, and 
dress it up with notions, which they make necessary and 
fundamental parts of it, as if there were no way into the 
church but through the academy or lyceum ;" but the re- 
ligion which he had enunciated was, Locke conceived, the 
religion of Christ and the Apostles, of the New Testament 
and of Common-Sense. 



160 LOCKE. [chap. 

That Locke, though he had no respect for the dogmas 
of the Church, never seriously questioned the supernatural 
birth of Christ, the reality of the Christian miracles, or 
the infallibility of the Scriptures, is abundantly evident. 
On the last point his testimony is quite as emphatic as 
on the former two. In the Reasonableness of Christianity, 
speaking of the writers of the Epistles, he says: — u These 
holy writers, inspired from above, writ nothing but truth." 
And, to the same effect, in his Second Reply to Stilling- 
fleet, he writes: — " My lord, I read the revelation of the 
holy scripture with a full assurance that all it delivers is 
true." The word " infallible " is applied, without any 
misgiving or qualification, to the contents of Scripture, 
though he assumes to each individual believer full liberty 
of interpretation. During his residence in Holland, as 
we have already seen, he appears to have entertained some 
doubts on this subject, but, at a later period, those doubts 
appear to have been finally laid. 

Notwithstanding, however, the sincerity and simplicity 
of Locke's religious faith, the doctrines which he main- 
tained must have represented but a very attenuated Chris- 
tianity to the partisans of the two great religious parties 
which were at that time nominally the strongest in Eng- 
land. A Christianity which did not recognize the heredi- 
tary taint of original sin, and which passed over the mys- 
tery of the Atonement in silence, must have been as dis- 
tasteful to one party as a Christianity which ignored 
Church authority and the exclusive privileges of the apos- 
tolical succession must have been to the other. And to the 
zealots of both parties alike, a statement of doctrine which 
was silent on the mystery of the Trinity, or rather which 
seemed to imply that the Son, though miraculously con- 
ceived, was not co-equal or co-eternal with the Father, and 



ix.] THEOLOGICAL WRITINGS. 101 

which, by implication, appeared to suggest that, though 
the righteous would be endowed with immortality, the 
torments of the wicked would have an end, might well 
seem not to deserve the name of Christianity at all. We 
need feel no wonder, then, that the appearance of Locke's 
work was followed by a bitter theological controversy 
which lasted during the rest of his life, and beyond it. 
Of these attacks upon him, and his Vindications, I have 
spoken in a previous chapter. 

Whether Locke's presentation of Christianity is really 
more " reasonable " than the ancient and venerable creeds 
which it attempted to replace, is a question which might 
be debated now with fully as much vigour as in his own 
day. On the one hand, it might be maintained that a 
religion which has no mysteries, which has been pared 
down to the requirements of human reason, has ceased to 
be a religion altogether. That which is behind the veil 
can only be partially revealed in our present conditior 
and to our present faculties. Now we know, and can 
know, only in part. On the other hand, it might be said 
that the " reason " is quite as much offended by the doc- 
trines which Locke retained as by those which he reject- 
ed. It is necessary, however, to recollect, in estimating 
his position, that the theological difficulties of his age 
were moral and metaphysical rather than scientific and 
critical. The moral consciousness of many reflecting men 
was shocked by doctrines like those of original sin, pre- 
destination, the atonement, and everlasting punishment 
Nor could they reconcile to their reason the seeming con- 
tradictions of the doctrine of a Triune God. But the 
study of nature had not advanced sufficiently far, or been 
sufficiently widely spread, to make the idea of supernatural 
intervention in the ordinary course of affairs, such as is 
8 



162 LOCKE. [chap. 

constantly presented to us in the Biblical history, any seri- 
ous or general stumbling-block. Much less had the criti- 
cism of the Sacred Text, or the comparison of it with the 
sacred books of other religions, become sufficiently com- 
mon, or been carried out with sufficient rigour, to disturb, 
to any great extent, the received opinion that the Bible 
was literally, or, at least, substantially, the Word of God. 
Hence the via media on which Locke took his stand, 
though it might have been impossible to a philosopher 
of the next generation, seemed reasonable and natural 
enough to speculative men among his contemporaries. 
And for him it had at least this advantage, that it en- 
abled him honestly to reconcile the conclusions of his 
philosophy with the singular piety and devoutness of his 
disposition. Had his religious doubts proceeded further 
than they did, there would probably have ensued a mental 
struggle which, besides causing him much personal un- 
happiness, might have deprived posterity of the more im- 
portant of his works. 

Of The Letters on Toleration, though deeply interest- 
ing to the generation in which they were written, a very 
brief account will here suffice. Their main thesis is, that 
the jurisdiction of the civil magistrate does not extend to 
the regulation of religious worship or to controlling the 
expression of religious beliefs, except so far as that wor- 
ship or those beliefs may interfere with the ends of civil 
government. The respective provinces of a commonwealth 
and a church are strictly defined, and are shown to be per- 
fectly distinct. " The boundaries on both sides are fixed 
and immovable. He jumbles heaven and earth together, 
the things most remote and opposite, who mixes these 
societies, which are in their original, end, business, and in 



ix.] LETTERS ON TOLERATION. 163 

everything, perfectly distinct and infinitely different from 
each other." But it may be asked, are there no specu- 
lative opinions, no tenets, actual or possible, of any relig- 
ious community which should be restrained by the Civil 
Magistrate ? The answer is, yes, — 

u First, No opinions contrary to human society, or to those moral 
rules which are necessary to the preservation of civil society, are to 
be tolerated by the magistrate." 

Secondly, after speaking of those who maintain such 
positions as that " faith is not to be kept with heretics," 
that " kino-s excommunicated forfeit their crowns and 
kingdoms," that " dominion is founded in grace," he pro- 
ceeds : 

" These, therefore, and the like, who attribute unto the faithful, 
religious, and orthodox, that is, in plain terms, unto themselves, any 
peculiar privilege or power above other mortals in civil concern- 
ments, or who, upon pretence of religion, do challenge any manner 
of authority over such as are not associated with them in their ec- 
clesiastical communion : I say these have no right to be tolerated by 
the magistrate, as neither those that will not own and teach the duty 
of tolerating all men in matters of mere religion. For what do all 
these and the like doctrines signify, but that they may, and are ready 
upon any occasion to seize the government, and possess themselves 
of the estates and fortunes of their fellow-subjects, and that they 
only ask leave to be tolerated by the magistrates so long until they 
find themselves strong enough to effect it ?" 

" Thirdly, That church can have no right to be tolerated by the 
magistrate, which is constituted upon such a bottom that all those 
who enter upon it do thereby ipso facto deliver themselves up to the 
protection and service of another prince. For by this means the 
magistrate would give way to the settling of a foreign jurisdiction in 
his own country, and suffer his own people to be listed, as it were, 
for soldiers against his own government." 

" Lastly, Those are not at all to be tolerated who deny the being 



IG4 LOCKE. [chap. 

of God. Promises, covenants, and oaths, which are the bonds of- hu- 
man society, can have no hold upon an atheist. The taking away of 
God, though but even in thought, dissolves all." 

The practical result of Locke's exceptions, at the time 
at which he wrote, would have been to exclude from toler- 
ation Roman Catholics, Atheists, and perhaps certain sects 
of Antinomians. Roman Catholics, however, would not 
have been excluded on the ground of their belief in Tran- 
substantiation, as was actually the case, but because of 
those tenets which, in Locke's judgment, made them bad 
or impossible subjects. 

Locke was not by any means the first of English 
writers who had advocated a wide toleration in religion. 
Bacon, in his remarkable Essay on Unity in Religion, had 
laid down, in passing, a position which is almost identical 
with that developed at length in the Letters on Toleration. 
During the Civil Wars, the Independents, as a body, had 
been led on by their theories of Church Government and 
of individual inspiration to maintain, on principle, and ac- 
cord, in practice, a large measure of religious toleration. 
Amongst divines of the Church of England, Hales of 
Eton, Chillingworth, and Jeremy Taylor, had honourably 
distinguished themselves above the mass of their brethren 
by expressly advocating, or unmistakably suggesting, the 
same humane doctrines. The practical conclusions at 
which Taylor arrives, in his noble work on the Liberty of 
Prophesying, bear a close resemblance to those of Locke's 
Letters on Toleration, wdiile the theoretical considerations 
on which he mainly founds them, namely, the difficulty of 
discovering religious truth, and the small number of theo- 
logical propositions of which we can entertain anything 
like certainty, might be regarded as anticipating, to no 
small extent, some of the views expressed in the Reason- 



ix.] LETTERS ON TOLERATION. 165 

ableness of Christianity, Locke's attention had been 
turned to these questions at an early period of his life 
by the religious dissensions which accompanied the Civil 
Wars, and, during the years immediately preceding the 
publication of the first Letter on Toleration, his interest 
in them must have been sustained not only by the events 
which were then happening in England, but by the com- 
mon topics of conversation amongst his Arminian or Re- 
monstrant friends in Holland. The peculiarities of their 
position and the tendencies of their doctrines had, at an 
early date, forced on the Dutch Remonstrants, just as on 
the English Independents, the necessity of claiming and 
defending a wide toleration. What, perhaps, mainly dis- 
tinguishes Locke's pamphlets is their thorough outspoken- 
ness, the political rather than the theological character of 
the argument, and the fact that they are expressly dedi- 
cated to the subject of Toleration, instead of treating of 
it incidentally. 

The sharp line of demarcation which Locke draws be- 
tween the respective provinces of civil and religious com- 
munities seems to lead logically to the inexpediency of 
maintaining a state establishment of religion. The inde- 
pendence which he claims for all religious societies would 
be inconsistent with the control which the State always 
has exercised, and always must exercise, in the affairs of 
any spiritual body on which it confers special privileges. 
This conclusion, we can hardly doubt, he would have read- 
ily accepted. As far back as 1669, he had objected to 
one of the articles in the "Fundamental Constitutions of 
Carolina," providing for the establishment and endowment 
of the Church of England in that colony. Even at the 
present day, men who adopt the most liberal and tolerant 
opinions on religious questions are divided as to the ex- 



i:6 LOCKE. [chap. 

pediency or inexpediency of recognizing a State-Church ; 
but those who embrace the latter alternative may, perhaps, 
fairly claim Locke as having been on their side. 

The system contained in the Reasonableness of Chris- 
tianity had been constructed solely on an examination of 
the Gospels and the Acts of the Apostles. In addition to 
the difficulties of interpretation attaching to the Epistles, 
Locke had urged that " they were writ to them who were 
in the faith and true Christians already, and so could not 
be designed to teach them the fundamental articles and 
points necessary to salvation." But to one who accept- 
ed the divine inspiration and infallibility of all parts 
of Scripture, it was essential to establish the consistency 
and coherence of the whole. Accordingly, in the later 
years of his life, Locke set himself the task of explaining 
the Epistles. This work seems to have been undertaken 
more for his own satisfaction and that of Lady Masharn 
and his more immediate friends, than with any distinct 
design of publication. Nor did his commentaries see the 
light till after his death. 

The commentatorial work accomplished by Locke con- 
sists of paraphrases and notes on the Epistles to the Ga- 
latians, Corinthians, Romans, and Ephesians, together with 
An Essay for the understanding of St. PauVs Epistles by 
consulting St. Paul himself 

It is needless to remark that these commentaries are 
distinguished by sound, clear sense, and by a manifest spirit 
of candour and fairness. They are often quoted with ap- 
probation by commentators of the last century. But in 
the present more advanced state of grammatical and his- 
torical criticism, they are likely to remain, as they now 
are, the least consulted of all his works. 



ix.] THEOLOGICAL WRITINGS. 167 

The method, object, and drift of all Locke's theological 
writings is the same. Regardless of ecclesiastical tradi- 
tion, but assuming the infallibility of the Scriptures, he 
attempts to arrive at the true and essential import of 
God's Revelation to man. His theoretical conclusion is 
that the articles of saving faith are few and simple, and 
the practical application of that conclusion is that, not 
only within the ample fold of Christianity, but even with- 
out it, all men, whose conduct is consistent with the main- 
tenance of civil society, should be the objects of our good 
will and charity. 



CHAPTER X. 

THE THOUGHTS ON EDUCATION AND THE CONDUCT OF THB 
UNDERSTANDING. 

Locke's tractate on Education, though some of the max- 
ims are reiterated with needless prolixity, abounds in 
shrewdness and common-sense. Taking as the object of 
education the production of " a sound mind in a sound 
body," he begins with the " case," the " clay-cottage," and 
considers first the health of the body. Of the diet pre- 
scribed, dry bread and small beer form a large proportion. 
Locke is a great believer in the virtues of cold water. 
Coddling, in all its forms, was to be repressed with a 
strong hand. My young master was to be much in the 
open air, he was to play in the wind and the sun without 
a hat, his clothes were not to be too warm, and his bed 
was to be hard and made in different fashions, that he 
might not in after-life feel every little change, when there 
was no maid " to lay all things in print, and tuck him in 
warm." 

In the cultivation of the mind, far more importance is 
attached to the formation of virtuous habits, and even of 
those social qualities which go by the name of "good 
breeding," than to the mere inculcation of knowledge. " I 
place Virtue as the first and most necessary of those en- 
dowments that belong to a Man or a Gentleman ; as abso- 
lutely requisite to make him valued and beloved by others, 



chap, x] THOUGHTS OX EDUCATION. 169 

acceptable or tolerable to himself." Wisdom, that is to 
say, "a man's managing his business ably, and with fore- 
sight, in this world," comes next in order. In the third 
place is Good Breeding, the breaches of which may be all 
avoided by " observing this one rule, Not to think meanly 
of ourselves, and not to think meanly of others." Learn- 
ing, though "this may seem strange in the mouth of a 
bookish man," he puts last. " When I consider what ado 
is made about a little Latin and Greek, how many years 
are spent in it, and what a noise and business it makes to 
no purpose, I can hardly forbear thinking that the parents 
of children still live in fear of the Schoolmaster's Rod." 
" Seek out some body that may know how discreetly to 
frame your child's manners : place him' in hands where 
you may, as much as possible, secure his innocence, cherish 
and nurse up the good, and gently correct and weed out 
any bad inclinations, and settle in him good habits. This 
is the main point, and, this being provided for, Learning 
may be had into the bargain, and that, as I think" (a 
very common delusion among the educational reformers of 
Locke's time), " at a very easy rate, by methods that may 
be thought on." 

These being Locke's ideas as to the relative value of the 
objects to be aimed at in education, we need feel little 
surprise at the disfavour with which he viewed the system 
of the English Public Schools. 

" Till you can find a School wherein it is possible for the Master 
to look after the manners of his scholars, and can show as great ef- 
forts of his care of forming their minds to virtue and their carriage 
to good breeding as of forming their tongues to the learned lan- 
guages, you must confess that you have a strange value for words 
when, preferring the languages of the ancient Greeks and Romans to 
that which made 'em such brave men, you think it worth while to 
M 8* 



170 LOCKE. [chap. 

hazard your son's innocence and virtue for a little Greek and Latin. 
How any one's being put into a mixed herd of unruly boys, and 
there learning to wrangle at Trap or rook at Span-Farthing fits him 
for civil conversation or business, I do not see. And what qualities 
are ordinarily to be got from such a troop of Play-fellows as Schools 
usually assemble together from parents of all kinds, that a father 
should so much covet, is hard to divine. I am sure he who is able 
to be at the charge of a Tutor at home may there give his son a 
more genteel carriage, more manly thoughts, and a sense of what is 
worthy and becoming, with a greater proficiency in Learning into 
the bargain, and ripen him up sooner into a man, than any at School 
can do." 

The battle of private and public education has been 
waged more or less fiercely ever since Locke's time, as it 
was waged long before, and, although it has now been 
generally decided in favour of the Schools, many of his 
arguments have even yet not lost their force. 

Not only in the interest of morality, character, and man- 
ners did Locke disapprove the Public School system of 
his day. He also thought it essentially defective in its 
subjects and modes of instruction. The subjects taught 
were almost exclusively the Latin and Greek languages, 
though at Locke's own school of Westminster the upper 
forms were also initiated into Hebrew and Arabic. This 
linguistic training, though of course it included transla- 
tions from the classical authors, was to a large extent car- 
ried on by means of verse-making, theme-making, repe- 
tition, and grammar lessons. Against all these modes of 
teaching Locke is peculiarly severe. Grammar, indeed, he 
would have taught, but not till the pupil is sufficiently 
conversant with the language to be able to speak it with 
tolerable fluency. Its proper place is as an introduction 
to Rhetoric. " I know not why any one should waste his 
time and beat his head about the Latin Grammar, who 



x.] THOUGHTS ON EDUCATION. 171 

does not intend to be a critic, or make speeches and write 
despatches in it. ... If his use of it be only to under- 
stand some books writ in it, without a critical knowl- 
edge of the tongue itself, reading alone will attain this 
end, without charging the mind with the multiplied rules 
and intricacies of Grammar." But without a knowledge 
of some rules of grammar, which need not, however, be 
taught in an abstract and separate form, but may be 
learnt gradually in the course of reading, writing, and 
speaking, how would it be possible to attain to any pre- 
cise understanding of the authors read ? The fault of 
the old system, which even still lingers on in school in- 
struction, consisted not so much in teaching grammati- 
cal rules, as in teaching them apart from the writings 
which exemplify them, and which alone can render them 
intelligible or interesting to a beginner. 

The practice of rilling up a large part of a boy's time 
with making Latin themes and verses meets with still 
more scathing censure than that of initiating him into the 
learned languages by means of abstract rules of grammar, 
and we may well imagine the cordial assent with w 7 hich 
many of Locke's readers, smarting under a sense of the 
time they had in this way lost at school, would receive his 
criticisms. 

" For do but consider what it is in making a Theme that a young 
lad is employed about ; it is to make a speech on some Latin saying, 
as Omnia vincit amor, or Non licet in hello Ms peccarc, &c. And here 
the poor lad, who wants knowledge of those things he is to speak 
of, which is to be had only from time and observation, must set his 
invention on the rack to say something whore ho knows nothing; 
which is a sort of Egyptian tyranny to bid them make bricks who 
have not yet any of the materials. ... In the next place consider the 
Language that their Themes are made in. 'Tifl Latin, a language 
foreign in their country, and long since dead everywhere : a language 



172 LOCKE.\ [chap. 

which your son, 'tis a thousand to one, shall never have an occasion 
once to make a speech in as long as he lives after he comes to be a 
man ; and a language wherein the manner of expressing one's self is 
so far different from ours that to be perfect in that would very little 
improve the purity and facility of his English style." 

"If these may be any reasons against children's making Latin 
Themes at school, I have much more to say, and of more weight, 
against their making verses ; verses of any sort. For if he has no 
genius to poetry, 'tis the most unreasonable thing in the world to 
torment a child and waste his time about that which can never suc- 
ceed; and if he have a poetic vein, 'tis to me the strangest thing in 
the world that the father should desire or suffer it to be cherished or 
improved. Methinks the parents should labour to have it stifled and 
suppressed as much as may be ; and I know not what reason a father 
can have to wish his son a poet, who does not desire to have him bid 
defiance to all other callings and business. Which is not yet the 
worst of the case ; for if he proves a successful rhymer, and get once 
the reputation of a Wit, I desire it may be considered what company 
and places he is likely to spend his time in, nay, and estate too. For 
it is very seldom seen that any one discovers mines of gold or silver 
in Parnassus. 'Tis a pleasant air, but a barren soil ; and there are 
very few instances of those who have added to their patrimony by 
anything they have reaped from thence. Poetry and Gaming, which 
usually go together, are alike in this too, that they seldom bring any 
advantage but to those who have nothing else to live on." 

Repetition, as it is called, or " learning by heart great 
parcels of the authors which are taught," is unreserved- 
ly condemned as being of " no use at all, unless it be to 
baulk young lads in the way to learning languages, which, 
in ray opinion, should be made as easy and pleasant as 
may be." " Languages are to be learned only by reading 
and talking, and not by scraps of authors got by heart; 
which when a man's head is stuffed with, he has got the 
just furniture of a pedant, than which there is nothing 
less becoming a gentleman." This unqualified condemna- 
tion of the practice of committing to memory the choicer 



x.] THOUGHTS ON EDUCATION. 173 

pieces of classical authors, whether in the ancient or mod- 
ern languages, would hardly be adopted by the education- 
al reformers of our own day. To tax the memory of a 
child or a boy with long strings of words, ill understood 
or not understood at all, is about as cruel and senseless a 
practice as can well be conceived. It is one of the strange 
devices, invented by perverse pedagogues and tolerated by 
ignorant parents, through which literature and all that is 
connected with books has been made so repulsive to many 
generations of young Englishmen. Bat if the tastes and 
interests of the pupil are skilfully consulted, and the un- 
derstanding is called into action as well as the memory, 
a store of well-selected passages learnt by rote will not 
only do much to familiarize him with the genius of the 
language, but will also supply constant solace and occupa- 
tion in those moments of depression and vacuity which 
are only too sure to occur in every man's life. 

Locke, like Milton (see Milton's Pamphlet on Education 
addressed to Master Samuel Hartlib, and cp. Pattison's 
Life of Milton, published in this series, pp. 42-46), had 
embraced the new gospel of education according to Co- 
menius, and supposed that, by new methods, not only 
might the road to knowledge be rendered very short and 
easy, but almost all the subjects worth learning might be 
taught in the few years spent at School and College. The 
whole of Milton's " complete and generous education " 
was to be "done between twelve and one-and-twenty." 
And similarly Locke thinks that "at the same time that 
a child is learning French and Latin, he may also be en- 
tered in Arithmetic, Geography, Chronology, History, and 
Geometry too. For if these be taught him in French or 
Latin, when he begins once to understand either of these 
tongues, he will get a knowledge in these sciences and 



174 LOCKE. [chap. 

the language to boot." To these subjects are afterwards 
added Astronomy, Ethics, Civil and Common Law, Natu- 
ral Philosophy, and almost all the then known branches 
of human knowledge, though, curiously enough, Greek is 
omitted as not being, like Latin and French, essential to 
the education of a gentleman, and being, moreover, easy 
of acquisition, "if he has a mind to carry his studies 
farther," in after-life. Concurrently with these intellect- 
ual pursuits, the model young gentleman is to graduate 
in dancing, fencing, wrestling, riding, besides (and on this 
addition to his accomplishments the utmost stress is laid) 
"learning a trade, a manual trade, nay, two or three, but 
one more particularly." And all this programme appar- 
ently was to be rilled up before the age of one-and-twenty, 
for at that time Locke assumes that, notwithstanding all 
reasons and remonstrances to the contrary, my young 
master's parents will insist on marrying him, and "the 
young gentleman being got within view of matrimony, 
'tis time to leave him to his mistress." This idea of an 
education embracing the whole field of human knowledge 
and accomplishments is a vision so attractive, that it would 
be strange indeed if it did not from time to time present 
itself to the enthusiast and the reformer. But wherever 
the experiment has been tried on boys or youths of aver- 
age strength and ability, the vision has invariably been 
dissipated. And, as the circle of human knowledge is 
constantly widening, whereas the capacity to learn remains 
much the same from generation to generation, the failure 
is inevitable. 

Any account of Locke's views on Education, however 
meagre, would be very imperfect, if it neglected to notice 
the motives to obedience and proficiency which he pro- 
posed to substitute for what was then too often the one 



x.] THOUGHTS ON EDUCATION. 175 

and only motive on which the Schoolmaster relied, fear of 
the rod. Corporal chastisement should be reserved, he 
thought, for the offence of wilful and obstinate disobedi- 
ence. In all other cases, appeal should be made to the 
pupil's natural desire of employment and knowledge, to 
example acting through his propensity to imitation, to rea- 
soning, to the sense of shame and the love of commen- 
dation and reputation. Many of Locke's suggestions for 
bringing these motives effectually to bear are very ingen- 
ious, and the whole of this part of the discussion is as 
creditable to his humanity as to his knowledge of human 
nature. 

There is a large literature on the theory of education, 
from the Book of Proverbs and the Republic of Plato 
downwards. It is no part of my task even to mention 
the principal writers in this field. But, besides some of 
the works of Cornelius, the Essay of Montaigne De Vin- 
stitution des en/ants, and the tractate of Milton already 
referred to, we may almost take for granted that Locke 
had read the Schoolmaster of Roger Ascham. This au- 
thor, who was instructor to Queen Elizabeth, is already 
sufficiently independent of scholastic traditions to think 
that " children are sooner allured by love, than driven 
by beating, to attain good learning," and to suggest that 
"there is no such whetstone to sharpen a good wit, and 
encourage a will to learning, as is praise." He protests 
almost as strongly as Locke against the senseless mode, 
then and long afterwards prevalent, of teaching grammar 
merely by means of abstract rules, and proposes, as in 
part substitute, the method of double translation, that is, 
of translating from the foreign or dead language into 
English, and then back again. Of the many works on 
education subsequent to Locke's, the most famous is, un- 



J 76 



LOCKE. 



[chap. 



doubtedly, the Emile of Rousseau. On Rousseau's theo- 
ries there can be no question that Locke, mediately or 
immediately, exercised considerable influence, though the 
range of speculation covered in the Emile far exceeds that 
of the Thoughts concerning Education, Of the points 
common to the two writers, I may specify the extension 
of the term " education" to the regulations of the nursery, 
the substitution of an appeal to the tender and the social 
affections for the harsh discipline mostly in vogue among 
our ancestors, the stress laid on the importance of exam- 
ple and habituation in place of the mere inculcation of 
rules, and, as a point of detail, the desirableness of learn- 
ing one or more manual trades. One circumstance, how- 
ever, as Mr. Morley has pointed out, distinguishes the 
Emile from all the works on education which preceded it. 
Its scope is not confined to the children of well-to-do peo- 
ple, and hence its object is to produce, not the scholar and 
the gentleman, but the man. The democratic extension 
thus given to educational theories has since borne fruit 
in many schemes designed for general applicability, or, 
specifically, for the education of the poor, such as those 
of Basedow, Pestalozzi, and, among our own countrymen, 
Dr. Bell. 



In connexion with the Thoughts on Education, it may 
be convenient to notice the short treatise on the Conduct 
of the Understanding. It is true that it was designed as 
an additional chapter to the Essay, but the main theme 
of which it treats is connected rather with the work of 
self-education than with the analysis of knowledge, or the 
classification of the faculties. This admirable little vol- 
ume, which may be read through in three or four hours, 
appears to have been intended by Locke as at least a par- 



x.] CONDUCT OF THE UNDERSTANDING. Ill 

tial substitute for the ordinary logic. As in matters of 
conduct, so in the things of the intellect, he thought lit- 
tle of rules. It was only by practice and habituation that 
men could become either virtuous or wise. But, though 
it is perfectly true that rules are of little use without prac- 
tice, it is not easy to see how habit can be successfully 
initiated or fostered without the assistance of rules ; and 
inadequate as were the rules of the old scholastic logic to 
remedy the "natural defects in the understanding," they 
required rather to be supplemented than replaced. The 
views of Bacon on this subject, much as they have been 
misunderstood, are juster than those of Locke. 

Right reasoning, Locke thought (and this is nearly the 
whole truth, though not altogether so), is to be gained 
from studying good models of it. In the Thoughts on 
Education, he says, " If you would have your son reason 
well, let him read Chillingworth." In this treatise, with 
the same view he commends the study of Mathematics, 
"Not that I think it necessary that all men should be deep 
mathematicians, but that, having got the way of reason- 
ing which that study necessarily brings the mind to, they 
might be able to transfer it to other parts of knowledge, 
as they shall have occasion." The great difference to be 
observed in demonstrative and in probable reasoning is 
that, in the former one train of reasoning, " bringing the 
mind to the source on which it bottoms," is sufficient, 
whereas u in probabilities it is not enough to trace one 
argument to its source, and observe its strength and weak- 
ness, but all the arguments, after having been so exam- 
ined on both sides, must be laid in balance one against an- 
other, and, upon the whole, the understanding determine 
its assent." 

The great defect of this tractate (but its brevity makes 



178 LOCKE. [chap. x. 

the defect of less importance) is its singular want of 
method. In fact, it appears never to have undergone re- 
vision. The author seems to throw together his remarks 
and precepts without any attempt at order, and he never 
misses any opportunity of repeating his attacks on what 
he evidently regarded as being, in his own time, the main 
hindrances to the acquisition of a sound understanding — 
prejudice and pedantry. But in justness of observation, 
incisiveness of language, and profound acquaintance with 
the workings of the human mind, there are many passages 
which will bear comparison with anything he has written. 
Specially worthy of notice is the homely and forcible char- 
acter of many of his expressions, as when he speaks of a 
"large, sound, roundabout sense," of " men without any in- 
dustry or acquisition of their own, inheriting local truths," 
of great readers " making their understanding only the 
warehouse of other men's lumber," of the ruling passion 
entering the mind, like " the sheriff of the place, with all 
the posse, as if it had a legal right to be alone considered 
there." 

Except for the inveterate and growing custom of con- 
fining works employed in education to such as can be 
easily lectured on and easily examined in, it is difficult 
to understand why this " student's guide," so brief, and 
abounding in such valuable cautions and suggestions, 
should have so nearly fallen into desuetude. 



CHAPTER XL 

WORKS ON GOVERNMENT, TRADE, AND FINANCE. 

Locke's two Treatises of Government (published in 1690) 
carry us back into the region of worn-out controversies. 
The troublous times which intervened between the out- 
break of the Civil War and the Revolution of 1688, in- 
cluding some years on either side, naturally called forth a 
large amount of controversy and controversial literature 
on the rights of kings and subjects, on the origin of gov- 
ernment, on the point at which, if any, rebellion is justifi- 
able, and other kindred topics. Not only did the press 
teem with pamphlets on these subjects, but, for three-quar- 
ters of a century, they were constantly being discussed and 
re-discussed with a dreary monotony in Parliament, in the 
pulpits, in the courts of law, and in the intercourse of pri- 
vate society. It is no part of my plan to give any account 
of these disputes, except so far as they bear immediate- 
ly on the publication of Locke's treatises. It is enough, 
therefore, to state that the despotic and absolutist side in 
the controversy had been, or was supposed to have been, 
considerably re-inforced by the appearance in 1680 of a 
posthumous work, which had been circulated only in man- 
uscript during its author's lifetime, entitled Patriareha, or 
the Natural Power of Kings, by Sir Robert Kilmer. This 
curious book (a more correct edition of which was pub- 



180 LOCKE. [chap. 

listed by Edmund Bohun in 1685) grounds the rights of 
kings on the patriarchal authority of Adam and his suc- 
cessors. Adam had received directly from God (such was 
the theory) absolute dominion over Eve and all his chil- 
dren and their posterity, to the most remote generations. 
This dominion, which rested on two independent grounds, 
paternity and right of property, was transmitted by Adam 
to his heirs, and is at once the justification of the various 
sovereignties now exercised by kings over their subjects, 
and a reason against any limitation of their authority or 
any questioning of their titles. By what ingenious con- 
trivances the two links of the chain — Adam and the sev- 
eral monarchs now actually reigning on the earth — are 
brought together, those curious in such speculations may 
find by duly consulting the pages of Sir Robert Filmer's 
work. 

Such a tissue of contradictions, assumptions, and absur- 
dities as is presented by this book (which, however, con- 
tains one grain of truth, namely, that all political power 
has, historically, its ultimate origin in the dominion exer- 
cised by the head of the family or tribe) might have been 
left, one would think, without any serious answer. But 
we must recollect that at that time theological arguments 
were introduced into all the provinces of thought, and that 
any reason, which by any supposition could be connected 
with the authority of Scripture, was certain to exercise 
considerable influence over a vast number of minds. Any 
way, the book was celebrated and influential enough to 
merit, in Locke's judgment, a detailed answer. This an- 
swer was given in due form, step by step, in the former 
of Locke's two Treatises, which appears to have been writ- 
ten between 1680 and 1685, as the Edition of the Pa- 
triarcha quoted is invariably that of 1680. I do not pro- 



xi.] WORKS ON GOVERNMENT, TRADE, FINANCE. 181 

pose to follow him through his various arguments and 
criticisms, many of which, as will readily be supposed, are 
acute and sagacious enough. Most modern readers will 
be of opinion that one of his questions might alone have 
sufficed to spara him any further concern, namely, Where 
is Adam's hfcir now to be found? If he could be shown, 
and his title indubitably proved, the subsequent question 
of his rights and prerogatives might then, perhaps, be 
profitably discussed. 

Of incomparably more importance and interest than the 
former treatise is the latter, in which Locke sets forth his 
own theory concerning "the true original, extent, and end 
of Civil Government." Mr. Fox Bourne is probably cor- 
rect in referring the date of the composition of this trea- 
tise to the time immediately preceding and concurrent 
w.'ith the English Revolution, that is to say, to the closing 
period of Locke's stay in Holland. The work, especially 
in the later chapters, bears the marks of passion, as if writ- 
ten i in the midst of a great political struggle, and, in the 
Pieface to the two Treatises, it is distinctly stated to be 
th? author's object " to establish the throne of our great 
restorer, our present King William, and to justify to the 
world the people of England, w 7 hose love of their just and 
natural rights saved the nation when it was on the very 
brink of slavery and ruin." 

The theories advanced by Locke on the origin and nat- 
ure of civil society have much in common with those of 
Puffendorf and Hooker, the latter of whom is constantly 
quoted in the foot-notes. After so me prelimin ary specu- 
lations on the " state of nature," he de termines that P olit- 
ical Society originates solely in the indivi dual consents of 
those who constitute it. This consent, however, may be 
signified either expressly or tacitly, and the tacit consent 



182 LOCKE. [chap. 

" reaches as far as the very being of any one within the 
territories of that government." 

Though no man need enter a political society against 
his will, yet when, by consent given either expressly or 
tacitly, he has entered it, he must submit to the form of 
government established by the majority. There is, how- 
ever, one form of government which it is not competent 
even to the majority to establish, and that is Absolute 
Monarchy, this being " inconsistent with civil society, and 
so being no form of government at all." Locke ridicules 
the idea that men would ever voluntarily have erected 

"over themselves such an authority, " as if, when men quit- 
ting the state of nature entered into society, they agreed 
that all of them but one should be under the restraint of 
laws, but that he should still retain all the libert} r of the 
state of nature, increased with power and made licentious 

_by impunity. This is to think that men are so foolish, 
that they take care to avoid what mischiefs may be done 
them by pole-cats or foxes, but are content, nay, think it 
safety, to be devoured by lions." In these and some of 
the following strictures, he seems to have in view not only 
the ruder theories of Filmer and the absolutist divines, but 
also the more philosophical system of Hobbes. 

But, supposing a government other than an Absolute 
Monarchy to have been established, are there any acts or 
omissions by which it can forfeit the allegiance of its sub- 
jects ? To answer this question, we must look to the ends 
of political society and government. Now the great and 
chief end which men propose to themselves, when they 
unite into commonwealths, is " the mutual preservation of 
their lives, liberties, and estates, which I call by the gener- 
al name, property." A government, therefore, which neg- 
lects to secure this end, and still more a government which 



u.] WORKS ON GOVERNMENT, TRADE, FINANCE. 183 

itself invades the rights of its subjects, is guilty of a breach 
of trust, and consequently may be lawfully set aside, when- 
ever an opportunity occurs. Hence the community itself 
must always be regarded as the supreme authority, in 
abeyance, indeed, while its fiduciary properly and faithful- 
ly executes the powers entrusted to him, but ever ready to 
intervene when he misuses or betrays the trust reposed in 
him. 

On such a theory, it may be objected, of the relations 
of the people to the government, what is to prevent inces- 
sant disturbance and repeated revolutions ? Locke relies 
on the inertia of mankind. Moreover, as he says, with 
considerable truth, in a previous passage, whatever theo- 
ries may be propounded, or whatever traditions may have 
been handed down, as to the origin, nature, and extent of 
government, a people, which knows itself to be rendered 
miserable by the faults of its rulers and which sees any 
chance of bettering its condition, will not be deterred from 
attempting to throw off a yoke which has become intol- 
erable. " When the people are made miserable, and find 
themselves exposed to the ill-usage of arbitrary power, cry 
up their governors, as much as you will, for sons of Jupi- 
ter ; let them be sacred and divine, descended or author- 
ized from heaven ; give them out for whom or what you 
please, the same will happen. The people generally ill- 
treated, and contrary to right, will be ready upon any oc- 
casion to ease themselves of a burden that sits heavy upon 
them." 

But, though there is much truth in this last remark, 
there can be little question that absolutist theories of gov- 
ernment, especially when clothed with a religious sanction 
which appeals to the beliefs of the people at large, have 
much influence in protecting the person of an absolute 



184 LOCKE. [chap. 

mler, as well as in ensuring the execution of his orders ; 
while, on the other hand, theories like those of Locke 
have a tendency to encourage criticism, and to weaken 
many of the motives which have usually prevented men 
from offering resistance to the established government. 
The practical consequences of Locke's theories, as repro- 
duced and improved on by later writers, would probably 
be found, if we could trace them, to be represented, in no 
inconsiderable degree, in the French and American revo- 
lutions which occurred about a century after the publica- 
tion of the Treatises. Nor have his speculations been 
without their share, probably, in determining much of the 
political history and still more of the political sentiment 
of our own country. To maintain that kings have a di- 
vine right to misgovern their subjects, or to deny that the 
people are, in the last resort, the supreme arbiters of the 
fate of their rulers, are paradoxes which, to Englishmen of 
our generation, would appear not so much dangerous as 
foolish. This altered, state of sentiment, and the good 
fruit it has borne in the improved relations between the 
Legislature and the People, the Crown and the Parlia- 
ment, may, without undue partiality, be ascribed, at least 
in some measure, to the generous spirit of liberty which 
warms our author's pages, and to the Whig tradition which 
so long cherished his doctrines, till at last they became the 
common heritage of the English people. 

Admirable, however, as, in most respects, are the parts 
of Locke's treatise which discuss the present relations of 
governors and governed, his conception of the remote 
origin of political society is radically false. " The first 
framers of the government," " the original frame of the 
government" (ch. xiii.), have never had any existence ex- 
cept in the minds of jurists and publicists. In the prim- 



xi] Wf KS ON GOVERNMENT, TRADE, FINANCE. 185 

itive stages of human development, governments, like lan- 
guages, are not made ; t they grow. The observation of 
primitive communities still existing, combined with the 
more intelligent study of ancient history, has led recent 
writers to adopt a wholly different view of the origin of 
government (the question of the respective rights of gov- 
ernors and governed is not affected) from that which pre- 
vailed in the times of Hobbes, Locke, and Rousseau. The 
family or the tribe (according to different theories) is the 
original unit of society. Government, therefore, of some 
kind or other must always have existed, and the " state of 
nature n is a mere fiction. In course of time, the family 
or the tribe, by a natural process of development, would, 
in many cases, become greatly enlarged, or combine with 
other units like itself. Out of this growth or aggregation 
would arise, in most cases gradually and insensibly, the 
nation or state as known to later history. The consti- 
tution, the "frame of government," has generally passed 
through stages similar to those passed through by the 
state or nation. A body of custom must gradually have 
grown up even in the most primitive societies. The "cus- 
toms" would be interpreted and so administered by the 
house-father or head of the tribe. But, as the family or 
tribe changed its abode, or had to carry on its existence 
under different circumstances, or became enlarged, or com- 
bined with other families or tribes, the customs would 
necessarily be modified, often insensibly and unconscious- 
ly. Moreover, the house-father or head of the tribe might 
be compelled or might find it expedient to act in concert 
with others, either as equals or subordinates, in interpret- 
ing the customs, in taking measures of defence, in direct- 
ing military operations, or in providing for the various 
exigencies of the common life. Here there is no formal 
N 9 



186 LOCKE. [chap. 

assent of the governed to the acts of the governors, in our 
sense of those terms, though, undoubtedly, the whole fam- 
ily or tribe, or its stronger members, might on rare occa- 
sions substitute one head for another ; no passage from 
the " state of nature " to political society ; no definitely 
constituted "frame of government." At a further stage, 
no doubt, political constitutions were discussed and framed, 
but this stage was long posterior to the period in the prog- 
ress of society at which men are supposed to have quitted 
the state of nature, selected their form of government, and 
entered into an express contract with one another to obey 
and maintain it. The fault of Locke, like that of the oth- 
er political speculators of the seventeenth and eighteenth 
centuries, consisted in assuming that primitive man was 
impelled by the same motives, and acted in the same man- 
ner and with the same deliberate design, as the men of his 
own generation. As in morals and psychology, so in poli- 
tics, the historical and comparative methods, so familiar to 
recent investigators, were as yet hardly known. 

I ought not to dismiss this book without noticing 
Locke's remarks on the necessity of Parliamentary Re- 
form. " To what gross absurdities the following of cus- 
tom, when reason has left it, may lead, we may be satis- 
fied when we see the bare name of a town, of which there 
remains not so much as the ruins, where scarce so much 
housing as a sheepcote or more inhabitants than a shep- 
herd is to be found, sends as many representatives to the 
grand assembly of law-makers as a whole county numer- 
ous in people and powerful in riches." 

The writings of Locke on Trade and Finance are chiefly 
interesting to us on account of the place which they oc- 



XL] WORKS ON GOVERNMENT, TRADE, FINANCE. 187 

cupy in the History of Political Economy. They consist 
of three tracts, the occasions and consequences of which 
have already been described. The main positions which 
he endeavours to establish are three. First, interest, or the 
price of the hire of money, cannot, ordinarily speaking, be 
regulated by law, and, if it could so be regulated, its re- 
duction below the natural or market rate would be injuri- 
ous to the interests of the public. Secondly, as silver and 
gold are commodities not differing intrinsically in their 
nature from other commodities, it is impossible by arbi- 
trary acts of the Government to raise the value of silver 
and gold coins. You may, indeed, enjoin by Act of Par- 
liament that sixpence shall henceforth be called a shilling, 
but, all the same, it will only continue to purchase six- 
penny-worth of goods. You will soon find that the new 
shilling is only as effective in the market as the old six- 
pence, and hence, if the Government has taken the differ- 
ence, it has simply robbed its subjects to that atfl^unt. 
The third position, which he only maintains incidentally 
in discussing the other two, is that the commercial pros- 
perity of a country is to be measured by the excess of its 
exports over its imports, or, as the phrase then went, by 
the balance of trade. The two former of these proposi- 
tions are simple, but long -disputed, economical truths. 
The latter is an obstinate and specious economical fallacy. 
To understand Locke's contention on the first point, it 
must be borne in mind that in his time, and down even to 
the middle of the present reign, the maximum rate of in- 
terest allowable in all ordinary transactions was fixed by 
law. By the statute 12 Car. II. (passed in 16(30) it had 
been reduced from eight to six per cent. Sir Josiah Child, 
whose Observations concerning Trade had been reprinted in 
1690, and who probably represented a very large amount 



188 LOCKE. [chap. 

of mercantile opinion, advocated its further redaction to 
four per cent. He maintained, quoting the example of 
Holland, that low interest is the cause of national wealth, 
and that, consequently, to lower the legal rate of interest 
would be to take a speedy and simple method of making 
the country richer. Against this proposal Locke argued 
that the example of Holland was entirely beside the ques- 
tion; that the low rate of interest in that country was 
owing to the abundance of ready money which it had for- 
merly enjoyed, and not to any legal restrictions ; nay, in 
the States there was no law limiting the rate of interest at 
all, every one being free to hire out his money for any- 
thing he could get for it, and the courts enforcing the bar- 
gain, But, further, suppose the proposed law to be enact- 
ed ; what would be the consequences ? It would be cer- 
tain to be evaded, while, at the same time, it would ham- 
per trade, by increasing the difficulty of borrowing and 
lending, Rather than lend at a low rate of interest, many 
men would hoard, and, consequently, much of the money 
which would otherwise find its way into trade would be 
intercepted, and the commerce of the country be propor- 
tionately lessened. Excellent as most of these arguments 
are, Locke unfortunately stopped short of the legitimate 
conclusion to be drawn from them. He did not propose, 
as he should have done, to sweep away the usury laws al- 
together, but simply to maintain the existing law fixing 
the maximum of interest at six per cent. Sir Dudley 
North, in his admirable pamphlet, Discourses on Trade, 
published in 1691, just before the publication of the Con- 
siderations, but too late, perhaps, to have been seen by 
Locke, takes a much more consistent view as to the expe- 
diency of legal restrictions on the rate of interest. "As 
touching interest of money, he is clear that it should be 



XL] WORKS ON GOVERNMENT, TRADE, FINANCE. 1 si- 
left freely to the market, and not be restrained by law." 
Notwithstanding the opposition of men like North and 
Locke, to whom may be added an earlier writer, Sir Wil- 
liam Petty, the arguments of Child partially triumphed in 
the next reign* By the 12th of Anne, the legal rate of 
interest was reduced to five per cent., and so continued 
till the Act of 1854, repealing, with regard to all future 
transactions, the existing Usury Laws. There can be lit- 
tle doubt that public opinion had been prepared for this 
measure mainly through the publication of Bentham's 
powerful Defence of Usury, the telling arguments of 
which had gradually impressed themselves on the minds 
of statesmen and economists. Adam Smith, on the other 
hand, had stopped just where Locke did. " The legal rate 
of interest, though it ought to be somewhat above, ought 
not to be much above the lowest market rate." That the 
v ate of interest, whatever it may be, should be fixed by 
law, he appears to take for granted. Indeed, he seTrhs to 
write more confidently on this point than Locke had done, 
and, in this particular at least, appears to be of opinion 
that the legislator can look after the private interests of 
individuals better than they can look after their own* 
Happily, as Bentham points out, the refutation of this 
paradox was to be found in the general drift and spirit of 
his work. 

On the second question, " raising the value of money," 
Locke's views are much clearer and more consistent than 
on the first. It would be impossible to state more explic- 
itly than he has done the sound economical dictum that 
gold and silver are simply commodities, not differing es- 
sentially from other commodities, and that the govern* 
ment stamp upon them, whereby they become coin, can- 



190 LOCKE. [chap. 

not materially raise their value. As most of my readers 
are aware, it has been a favourite device, time out of mind, 
of unprincipled and impecunious governments to raise the 
denomination of the coin, or to put a smaller quantity of 
the precious metals in coins retaining the old denomina- 
tion, with the view of recruiting an impoverished excheq- 
uer. There have, doubtless, been financiers unintelligent 
enough to suppose that this expedient might enrich the 
government, while it did no harm to the people. But it 
requires only a slight amount of reflection to see that all 
creditors are defrauded exactly in the same proportion as 
that in which the coin is debased. One lucid passage 
from Locke's answer to Lowndes may suffice to show the 
forcible manner in which he presents this truth : 

" Raising of coin is but a specious word to deceive the unwary. It 
only gives the usual denomination of a greater quantity of silver to 
a less^y. g., calling four grains of silver a penny to-day, when five 
grains of silver made a penny yesterday), but adds no worth or real, 
value to the silver coin, to make amends for its want of silver. That 
is impossible to be done. For it is only the quantity of silver in it 
that is, and eternally will be, the measure of its value. One may as 
rationally hope to lengthen a foot, by dividing it into fifteen parts in- 
stead of twelve and calling them inches, as to increase the value of 
silver that is in a shilling, by dividing it into fifteen parts instead of 
twelve and calling them pence. This is all that is done when a shil- 
ling is raised from twelve to fifteen pence." 

Lowndes had maintained that " raising the coin," in 
addition to making up the loss caused by calling in the 
clipped money, and other advantages, would increase the 
circulating medium of the country, and so put a stop to 
the multiplication of hazardous paper-credit and the in- 
conveniences of bartering. Nothing could be better than 
Locke's reply : 



xi.] WORKS OX GOVERNMENT, TRADE, FINANCE. 191 

"Just as the boy cut his leather into five quarters (as he called 
them) to cover his ball, when cut into four quarters it fell short, but, 
after all his pains, as much of his ball lay bare as before; if the 
quantity of coined silver employed in England fall short, the arbitra- 
ry denomination of a greater number of pence given to it, or, which 
is all one, to the several coined pieces of it, will not make it com- 
mensurate to the size of our trade or the greatness of our occasions. 
This is as certain as that, if the quantity of a board which is to stop 
a leak of a ship fifteen inches square, be but twelve inches square, it 
will not be made to do it by being measured by a foot that is divided 
into fifteen inches, instead of twelve, and so having a larger tale or 
number of inches in denomination given to it." 

The general principle that to depreciate the coinage is 
to rob the creditor, and that, though you may change the 
name, you cannot change the thing, was quite as emphati- 
cally stated by Petty and North as by Locke. But the 
value of Locke's tracts consisted in their amplitude of 
argument and illustration, which left to the unprejudiced 
reader no alternative but to accept their conclusion. As 
he himself said in a letter to Molyneux, " Lay by the ar- 
bitrary names of pence and shillings, and consider and 
speak of it as grains and ounces of silver, and 'tis as easy 
as telling of twenty." 

Locke had the penetration to see that the laws existing 
in his time against the exportation of gold and silver coin 
must necessarily be futile, and, while it w T as permitted 
to export bullion, could answer no conceivable purpose. 
These laws, which date from the time of Edward the 
Third, were, curiously enough, not repealed till the year 
1819, though as early as the time of the Restoration they 
had been pronounced by so competent a judge as Sir Wil- 
liam Petty to be " nugatory " and " impracticable." Noth- 
ing, as Locke says towards the conclusion of his answer 



192 LOCKE. [chap. 

to Lowndes, could prevent the exportation of silver and 
gold in payment of debts contracted beyond the seas, and 
it could " be no odds to England whether it was carried 
out in specie or when melted down into bullion." But 
the principle on which the prohibition of exporting gold 
and silver coin ultimately rested seems to have been ac- 
cepted by him as unhesitatingly as it was by almost all 
the other economists of the time. That principle was 
that the wealth of a nation is to be measured by the 
amount of gold and silver in its possession, this amount 
depending on the ratio of the value of the exports to that 
of the imports. When the value of the exports exceeded 
that of the imports, the Balance of Trade, as it was called, 
was said to be in favour of a country ; when, on the other 
hand, the value of the imports exceeded that of the ex- 
ports, the Balance of Trade was said to be against it. A 
favourable balance, it was assumed, must necessarily in- 
crease the amount of gold and silver in the country, while 
an unfavourable balance must necessarily diminish it. 
And, lastly, the amount of gold and silver in its posses- 
sion was the measure of a nation's wealth. These views 
form part of what political economists call the Mercantile 
Theory, which it was the peculiar glory of Adam Smith 
to demolish. 

It is somewhat humiliating to the biographer of Locke 
to be obliged to confess that, in this respect, his theories 
on trade lag considerably behind those of an almost con- 
temporary writer, Sir Dudley North, whose work has al- 
ready been mentioned. Some of North's maxims are 
worthy of Adam Smith, and 'one wonders that, when once 
•enunciated, they found so little currency, and were so 
completely ignored in both the literature and the legis- 
lation of the time. Here are a few, but the whole tract 



xi.] WORKS ON GOVERNMENT, TRADE, FINANCE. 193 

may be read in less than an hour : " The whole world, as 
to trade, is but as one nation or people, and therein na- 
tions are as persons." " The loss of a trade with one na- 
tion is not that only, separately considered, but so much 
of the trade of the world rescinded and lost, for all is 
combined together." " No laws can set prices in trade, 
the rates of which must and will make themselves; but, 
when such laws do happen to lay any hold, it is so much 
impediment to trade, and therefore prejudicial." " No 
man is richer for having his estate all in money, plate, 
&c, lying by him, but, on the contrary, he is for that rea- 
son the poorer. That man is richest whose estate is in a 
growing condition, either in land at farm, money at inter- 
est, or goods in trade." " Money exported in trade is an 
increase to the wealth of the nation ; but spent in war and 
payments abroad, is so much impoverishment." " We may 
labour to hedge in the Cuckoo, but in vain ; for no people 
ever yet grew rich by policies, but it is peace, industry, 
and freedom that brings trade and wealth, and nothing 
else." 

Some of Locke's opinions on trade and finance were 
undoubtedly erroneous, and it must be confessed that the 
little tract of Sir Dudley North supplies a better summary 
of sound economical doctrine than any which we can find 
in his writings; but then this brochure is merely a sum- 
mary, with little of argument or elucidation, and perhaps 
it would be difficult to point to any previous or contempo- 
rary writer whose works are, on the whole, more impor- 
tant in the history of economical science than those of 
Locke." 

9* 



CHAPTER XII. 
locke's influence on thought. 

To trace Locke's influence on subsequent speculation would 
be to write the History of Philosophy from his time to 
our own. In England, France, and Germany there have 
been few writers on strictly philosophical questions in this 
century or the last who have not either quoted Locke's 
Essay with approbation, or at least paid him the homage 
of stating their grounds for dissenting from it. In the 
last century, his other works, especially those on Govern- 
ment and Toleration, may be said to have almost formed 
the recognized code of liberal opinion in this country, be- 
sides exercising a considerable influence on the rapidly de- 
veloping speculations which, in the middle of the century, 
were preparing an intellectual no less than a social revolu- 
tion in France. I can here only speak of the nature of 
Locke's influence, and of the directions it took, in the very 
broadest outline, and it is the less necessary that I should 
enter into detail, as I have frequently adverted to it in the 
preceding chapters. 

In England, the Essay, though from the first it had its 
ardent admirers, seemed, for some years after its appear- 
ance, to have produced its effect on English philosophical 
literature mainly by antagonism. Many were the critics 
who attacked the " new way of ideas," and attempted to 



chap, xil] LOCKE'S INFLUENCE ON THOUGHT. 195 

show the evil consequences to morals, religion, and exact 
thought which must follow from the acceptance of Locke's 
speculations. Here and there he was defended, but the 
attack certainly largely outnumbered the defence. Of 
these controversies I have already given some account in 
the chapters on Locke's Life, and need not, therefore, now 
recur to them. The first English writer on philosophy of 
the highest rank who succeeded Locke was Berkeley, and 
on him the influence of his predecessor is so distinctly ap- 
parent, that it may well be questioned whether Berkeley 
would ever have written the Principles and the Dialogues, 
if Locke had not written the Essay. Locke had regard- 
ed not " things " but " ideas " as the immediate objects of 
the mind in thinking, though he had supposed these ideas 
to be representative of things ; but why, argued Berkeley, 
suppose " things " to exist, if " ideas " are the only objects 
which we perceive? Again, Locke had analyzed the idea 
of Matter conceived as " Substance" into "we know not 
what " support of known qualities. How, then, said Berke- 
ley, do we know that it exists ? The idealist philosophy 
of Berkeley may thus be viewed as a development, on one 
side, of the philosophy of Locke. But Hume, by carrying 
Berkeley's scepticism further than he had done himself, 
and by questioning the reality of Substance, as applied 
either to matter or mind, may be said to have developed 
Locke's principles in a direction which was practically the 
very reverse of that taken by Berkeley. For the result of 
Berkeley's denial of " matter " was to enhance the impor- 
tance of "mind," and to re-assure men as to the existence 
of one all-embracing mind in the person of the Deity. 
But the result of the questions which Home raised as to 
the substantial existence of either Matter or Mind was to 
leave men in a state of pure scepticism, or, as w<> should 



196 LOCKE. [chap. 

now perhaps call it, Agnosticism. On the other appli- 
cations of Hume's method, I need not detain the reader. 
To the ordinary common-sense Englishman, who approach- 
ed philosophical questions with interest but without any 
special metaphysical aptitude, the systems both of Hume 
and Berkeley appeared to be open to the fatal objection 
of paradox, and hence, throughout the eighteenth century, 
Locke continued, in ordinary estimation, to hold the su- 
preme place among English philosophers. Horace Wal- 
pole (writing in 1789) probably expresses the average 
opinion of the English reading public of his time, when 
he says that Locke (with whom he couples Bacon) was al- 
most the first philosopher who introduced common-sense 
into his writings. Nor was it only that he was supreme 
in popular estimation. His influence is apparent in almost 
every philosophical and quasi-philosophical work of the pe- 
riod. It may specially be mentioned that the doctrine of 
Innate Ideas went out of fashion, both word and thing, and, 
when a similar doctrine came into vogue at the end of the 
century, under the authority of Reid and Stewart, it was in 
a modified form and under a new appellation, that of pri- 
mary or fundamental beliefs. These authors always spoke 
with the greatest respect of Locke, and Stewart especially 
was always anxious to establish, when possible, an identi- 
ty of opinion between himself and his illustrious predeces- 
sor. And even in recent times, when the topics and condi- 
tions of philosophical speculation have undergone so much 
change, there are few philosophical authors of eminence 
who do not make frequent reference to Locke's Essay. 
It is now perhaps seldom read through except by profess- 
ed students of philosophy, but it is still probably often er 
" dipped into " than any other philosophical treatise in 
the language. 



xil] LOCKE'S INFLUENCE ON THOUGHT. 197 

In France, the Essay at first made little way. It took 
more than twenty years to sell off the first edition of the 
French translation, but from 1723 to 1758 editions fol- 
lowed one another in rapid succession at intervals of about 
six years. Voltaire says that no man had been less read 
or more abused in France than Locke. The points in his 
philosophy which seem to have been specially selected for 
attack were the statements that God might, if he pleased, 
annex thought to matter, and that the natural reason could 
not alone assure us of the immortality of the soul. The 
qualifications, as the custom is, were dropped out of these 
statements, and it was roundly asserted that Locke main- 
tained the soul to be material and mortal. Voltaire does 
not fail to point out the hastiness and injustice of these 
conclusions, and is himself unbounded in his admiration 
for the English philosopher. Malebranche, he says, is 
read on account of the agreeableness of his style, Descartes 
on account of the hardihood of his speculations ; Locke 
is not read, because he is merely wise. There never was 
a thinker more wise, more methodical, more logical than 
Locke. Other reasoners had written a romance of the 
soul : Locke came and modestly wrote its history, devel- 
oping the ideas of the human understanding as an accom- 
plished anatomist explains the forces of the human body. 
Voltaire lived to see the philosophy of Locke, or rather 
an extreme phase of it, become almost the established 
creed of those who cared at all for speculative questions 
in France. Condillac in his early work, the Essnl sur 
V Origine des Connoissances Humaines (first published in 
1746), simply adopts Locke's account of the origin of 
knowledge, finding it in the two sources of Sensation and 
Reflection. But in his later work, the Traiti <ivs Sensa- 
tions, which appeared in 1754, he has gone far beyond his 



198 LOCKE. [chap. 

master, and not only finus the origin of all knowledge in 
sensation alone, but of all our faculties as well. It is in 
this work that the metaphor of the gradually animated 
statue occurs. Condillac's system soon became the fash- 
ionable philosophy of his countrymen, and both friends 
and foes credited Locke with its parentage. With Joseph 
de Maistre, who may be regarded as the bitterest exponent 
of French Ultramontanism, Locke is the immediate link 
through whom Helvetius, Cabanis, and the other enemies 
of the human race in France had derived from Bacon the 
principles which had been so destructive to their country 
and mankind. But it was not the followers of Condillac 
only who professed to base their systems on the princi- 
ples of Locke. Degerando, writing in 1813, says, " All the 
French philosophers of this age glory in ranging them- 
selves among the disciples of Locke, and admitting his 
principles." The great names of Turgot, Diderot, D'Alem- 
bert, Condorcet, and Destutt de Tracy alike appear in the 
roll of his professed disciples. And even when the reac- 
tion against the authority of Locke began in France, his 
influence might still be traced in authors like Maine de 
Biran, Rover Collard, Cousin, and Jouffroy, however em- 
phatically they might repudiate his system as a whole. 
Lastly, Auguste Comte may be connected with Locke 
through Hume. 

Except by way of reaction and opposition, Locke's in- 
fluence has been felt much less in Germany than in either 
England or France. The earliest opponent of his philos- 
ophy, who himself held any high rank as a philosopher, 
was Leibnitz, who, in his Nouveaux Essais (written in 
1704, but not published till 1765), attacked not only 
Locke's specific conclusions, but his method of commenc- 
ing the study of philosophy with an examination of the 



xil] LOCKE'S INFLUENCE ON THOUGHT. 199 

human mind. Yet he recognizes the Essay as " one of 
the most beautiful and most esteemed works of this time." 
It may be remarked as curious that he is disposed to rate 
the Thoughts on Education even still higher than the Es- 
say. But, when we think of Locke's relation to German 
philosophy, it is mainly in connexion with the antagonism 
of Kant. For, though Kant states that he was " awoke 
from his dogmatic slumber" by reading Hume, it is 
plain, throughout the ICritik, that he has in his mind the 
system of Locke at least as much as that of his sceptical 
successor. And yet these two great philosophers, the re- 
former of English and the reformer of German philoso- 
phy, have much in common, specially their mode of ap- 
proaching the problems of ontology and theology, which 
have vexed so many generations of thinkers, by first in- 
quiring into the, limits, capacities, and procedure of the 
human mind. 

Of the specific influence of Locke's treatises on Govern- 
ment, Religion, Toleration, Education, and Finance I have 
already said something in previous chapters. In each one of 
these subjects the publication of his views forms a point of 
departure, and no writer on the history of any one of them 
could dispense with a lengthened notice of his theories. 

But far more important than their specific influence on 
other writers, or even on the development of the subjects 
with which they deal, has been the effect of Locke's writ- 
ings on the history of progress and civilization. In an 
age of excitement and prejudice, he set men the example 
of thinking calmly and clearly. When philosophy was 
almost synonymous with the arid discussion of scholastic 
subtleties, he wrote so as to interest statesmen and men 
of the world. At a time when the chains of dogma were 
far tighter, and the penalties of attempting to loosen 



200 LOCKE. [chap. xii. 

them far more stringent, than it is now easy to conceive, 
he raised questions which stirred the very depths of hu- 
man thought. And all this he did in a spirit so candid, 
so tolerant, so liberal, and so unselfish, that he seemed to 
be writing not for his own party or his own tmies, but for 
the future of knowledge and of mankind. To sound ev- 
ery question to the bottom, never to allow our convictions 
to outstrip our evidence, to throw aside all prejudices and 
all interests in the pursuit of truth, but to hold the truth, 
when found, in all charity and with all consideration to- 
wards those who have been less fortunate than we — these 
are the lessons which, faithfully transmitted through two 
centuries by those who had eyes to see and ears to hear, 
he has bequeathed to us and our posterity. 



THE ENDo 






LATEST PUBLICATIONS 

FROM THE PRESS OF 

HARPER & BROTHERS. 



THINGS SEEN. By Victor Hugo. With Portrait. 16mo, Half Cloth, 
75 cents. 

THE BLOT IN THE 'SCUTCHEON, and Other Drama?. By Robert 
Browning. Edited, with Notes, by William J. Rolfe, A.M., and Hel- 
oise E. Hersey. With Portrait. Square 16rno, Cloth, 56 cents ; Paper, 
40 cents. 

ALLAN QUATERMAIN. By H. Rider Haggard. Profusely Illustrated. 
16mo,Half Cloth, 75 cents; Paper, 25 cents. 

HORSEMANSHIP FOR WOMEN. By Theodore H. Mead. Illustrated 
by Gray Parker. Square 8vo, Cloth, $1 25. 

SEBASTOPOL. By Count Leo Tolstoi. Translated from the French by 
F. D. Millet. With Portrait. 16mo, Cloth, 75 cents. 

BAR HARBOR DAYS. By Mrs. Burton Harrison. Illustrated. 16mo, 

Cloth, $1 25. 

THE STORY OF THE EARTH AND MAN. By Sir J. W. Dawson. 

New and Revised Edition, with Illustrations. T2mo, Cloth, $1 50. 

KEATS.. By Sidney Colyin. (" English Men of Letters " Series.) 12mo, 
Cloth, 75 cents. 

FRANKLIN SQUARE SONG COLLECTION, No. 4. Two Hundred Fa- 
vorite Songs and Hymns for Schools and Homes, Nursery and Fireside. 
Selected by J. P. McCaskey. pp. 184. 8yo, Paper, 50 cents ; Boards, 
60 cents; Cloth, $1 00. 

A HUMBLE ROMANCE, arid Other Stories. By Mary S. Wilkins. 
pp.440. 16mo, Cloth, $1. 25. 

MANNERS AND SOCIAL . USAGES. A Book of Etiquette. By Mrs. 
John Sherwood. A New and Enlarged Edition, pp. 486. 16mo, 
Ornamental Cloth, Gilt Tops, $1 25. 

FRANKLIN SQUARE LIBRARY. (Latest Issues.) 

Jacobi's Wife. A Novel. Bv Adeline Sergeant 'i'» 

" Y. R," • 15 

Present Position of European Politics. By Sir Charles W. Dilke. 

99 Dark Street. A Novel. By F. W. Robinson 1 5 

A Choice of Chance. A Novel. By William Dodson 

A Lost Reputation. A Novel 

Amor Yincit. A Novel. By Mrs. Herbert Martin 

J6£^* Harper & Brother? will a t the above works by n 

paid t to any part of the United States or Canada. 



HARPER'S PERIODICALS. 



HARPER'S MAGAZINE, One Year ...... $4 00 

HARPER'S WEEKLY, One Year 4 00 

HARPER'S BAZAR, One Year 4 00 

HARPER'S YOUNG PEOPLE, One Year ... 2 00 

HARPER'S FRANKLIN SQUARE LIBRARY, 

One Year, 52 Numbers 10 00 

The Volumes of the Weekly and Bazar begin with the first Number 
for January, the Volumes of the Young People with the first Numbe: 
for November, and the Volumes of the Magazine with the Numbers fo 
June and December of each year. 

Subscriptions will be commenced with the Number of each Periodica' 
current at the time of receipt of order, except in cases where the sub 
scriber otherwise directs. 






BOUND VOLUMES. 

Bound Volumes of the Magazine for three years back, each Volume 
containing the Numbers for Six Months, will be sent by mail, postage 
prepaid, on receipt of $3 00 per Volume in Cloth, or $5 25 in Half Calf. 

Bound Volumes of the Weekly or Bazab for three years back, each con- 
taining the Numbers for a vear, will be sent by mail, postage prepaid, on 
receipt of $7 00 per Volume in Cloth, or $10 50 in Half Morocco. 

Harper's Young People for 1883, 1884, and 1885, handsomely bound 
in Illuminated Cloth, will be seut by mail, postage prepaid, on receipt of 
$3 50 per Volume. 

VW The Bound Volumes of Harper's Young People for 1S80, 18S1, 1882, and 1886 
are out of stocky and will not be reprinted. 



ADVERTISING. 



The extent and character of the circulation of Harper's Magazine, 
Harper's Weekly, Harper's Bazar, and Harper's Young People 
render them advantageous mediums for advertising. A limited number 
of suitable advertisements will be inserted at the following rates :— In the 
Magazine, Fourth Cover Page, $1500 00; Third Cover Page, or First 
Page of advertisement sheet, $500 00; one-half of such page when whole 
page is not taken, $300 00 ; one-quarter of such page when whole page is 
not taken, $150 00; an Inside Page of advertisement sheet, $250 00; one- 
half of such page, $150 00; one -quarter of such page, $75 00; smaller 
cards on an inside page, per line, $2 00: in the Weekly, Outside Page, 
$2 00 a line ; Inside Pages, $1 50 a line : in the Bazar, $1 00 a line : in the 
Young People, Cover Pages, 50 cents a line. Average : eight words to a 
line, twelve lines to an inch. Cuts and display charged the same rates for 
space occupied as solid matter. Remittances should be made by Post- 
Office Money Order or Draft, to avoid chance of loss. 

Address: HARPER & BROTHERS, 

Franklin Square, New York. 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 



029 798 188 2 



